


Your Shadow I Follow

by MiraHerondale



Series: The Heart Avatars [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Blood and Violence, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, First Time, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Multi, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Burn, Violence, dom/sub violence, mormor, mystrade, the most happy ending you can probably digest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:42:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7248853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraHerondale/pseuds/MiraHerondale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU-Soulmates. In the distant future, a new variant of humans has appeared: the dystopians. These types of individuals have an animal spirit that represents them symbolically and accompanies them from puberty until they meet their soul mates. Through dreams, the couples keep in contact until they meet in real life. Everything seems perfect when Sherlock dreams for the first time with his sand-colored wolf, but a new government appears in London. Soon, the society is divided into two: the side of the ‘pure’ and the dystopians, causing the separation of many kindred spirits, including Sherlock and his mate. What was the cause of the terror? His name is Leader, but others call him Jim Morairty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Painting the target

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Your Shadow I Follow](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/207967) by Iglublue12. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/T: This story is a translation of the work 'Your shadow I follow' written by MiraHerondale. I do not own the plot of the story 'Your Shadow I Follow', MiraHerondale does. I neither own the TV show 'Sherlock', Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat do. Further, the TV show 'Sherlock' is based on 'Sherlock Holmes' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
> 
>  
> 
> A/N:IMPORTANT STUFF AHEAD PLEASE READ
> 
> I do repeat myself just in case: read the tags, I beg you. There might be triggering stuff ahead, and it's not my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or triggered. I'll do post warnings on the harder chapters, but take in consideration what kind of story I'm telling here. Its not going to be all rainbows and happy flowers. If you feel there's anything missing in the tags, feel free to tell me and I'll add. I wrote down as many as I could thought about that might be important. There might be additions as the story develops, though.
> 
> That said, I let you read.

The first dream that Sherlock Holmes had with a wolf, occurred on his twelfth birthday.

The wolf’s fur was a pale tone, it looked as if it were clear honey; it was sprinkled with white in the tips in areas where it became darker, behind the ears and in the edges of the lower back. The blue eyes of the animal followed all of his movements while it scurried around with its hanging tongue, sniffed the air with his snout, and moved his pointed ears backward and forwards. He observed the wolf from above. His most recurring fantasy was of flying, he always felt comfortable with the idea of rising over everything else. Sometimes, he dreamed that he was a fierce and daring pirate, but he couldn’t compare the freedom of flying with being a fierce pirate that was feared.

The sensation of floating above everything else was much better.

Normally, he wouldn’t approach the ground in his dreams. There was nothing interesting down there, but that time it was different. He felt an immense curiosity about the wolf; he knew it was important, although he couldn’t remember why.

He descended among the bare branches covered in snow in the forest that he was located; it was dotted with white and ochre as an early snowfall occurred in the last days of autumn. The wolf raised its head and sniffed until he was found. He landed on one of the lower branches, not wanting to go lower, and observed from there. The animal walked with its paws treading gently but firmly the fallen leaves, branches, and snow. It walked with a certain elegance, gently wiggling its bushy tail behind him. By the way, it looked its surroundings; you could even say it was lost.

Sherlock noticed, despite his limited knowledge in the animal field that his unexpected companion of dreams was no more than a puppy. Its head was still bigger than its body, and the legs would bounce as if it was wishing to play at any time. The pup reminded him of _Redbeard_ , he wanted to descend and play with him.

Knowing he was small and light, Sherlock planned to descend on top of the wolf and landed on its side, trying to get his attention. The wolf turned its head to look at him, licking its snout. Sherlock looked down and, in a small puddle, he saw his reflection for the first time. He was a raven, small and slim, with long feathers that were black and shimmering like the jet gemstone. He croaked, opening his wings and flapping them gently.

After both, wolf and raven, walked together through the snowy forest –the raven perched on the wolf, kneading the hair with the claws without scratching the skin–, Sherlock started to wake up, and forced himself to fly away, wishing to dream again with the wolf with the sandy fur. He flew off, drawing circles as he rose, and he heard the clear howl of the wolf when it raised its head elegantly to howl.

When he woke up in the morning, he told his mother that he dreamt with a wolf. She got tremendously excited, at the edge of ecstasy, as the dream brought great news with it.

Mycroft and his serpentine dragon with blue topaz scales appeared during breakfast. His brother had a book between his hands, and the dragon snaked through the air beside him. When he sat down, the dragon curled itself in his chair and poked its head above Mycroft’s, releasing a light cloud of smoke–smelling as the incense ‘Night Queen’–through the nostrils. Sherlock liked to play with Mycroft's dragon, although it also used to be quite ... despotic. However, what he loved most above all things, was sitting by the fireplace to read and having the dragon lying beside him, to smell the incense-like smell that floated around.

“Congratulations Sherlock. You’ve become dystopian.”

In that area of the new world, people emerged with prophetic dreams. Along with creatures that ancient civilizations had called as guardian spirits. They were the shapes of the embodied under the disguise of animals that protected their owner and ensured that they could find their other half. The ones destined to share their hearts.

Not all dystopians–this is how they had called them in the early twentieth century when the first humans with animal spirits began to emerge–were destined to a partner, as they could die before meeting each other; or you could be a dystopian and your animal could never manifest. Furthermore, being a dystopian married to another dystopian did not guarantee that the offspring would also be one, so they were a part of the population that was quite unpredictable.

Despite the seemingly random factors of being a dystopian, it was known that, as a general rule, the first dream with the chosen soul mate would happen in the last years of puberty, when the character of the child is practically formed and the animal spirit can take shape.

This is why, at twelve years of age —when Sherlock announced that he had dreamed with the sand-colored wolf—, a giant celebration was done in his home. Specifically because it was quite premature. People his age did not have the dreams that early. People his age did not usually have symptoms of dystopia. But that didn’t matter.

Because Sherlock had a soul mate and it was waiting for him somewhere.

He only had to search for him or her and pray that nothing happened to them along the way.

* * *

 

The second time that Sherlock dreamed with the sand-colored wolf, the wolf itself was a bigger size, with an abundant coat and strong legs. It had its tail between its legs, fallen, trying to not show itself. The wolf was wearing a chain around its neck, thick and heavy, which bound him to a throne made up of stone, covered with grass and vines. The wolf was looking around, whining and yelping, pulling the chain to break free.

He watched everything from one of the branches over the wolf, waiting to see that there was nobody that could attack him. Everything about the place reeked of being a trap. However, the pitiful yelping of the animal started to break him inside, so without thinking, he glided until he stopped on the floor in front of him, studying the chain, looking for an opening. The wolf looked at him and cried, stretching out to its maximum height, begging for his help. The crow pecked at the bonds without success, and only managed to hurt itself. However, he stayed with the wolf, watching and thinking of a way to free him until he woke up.

The animal, on the other hand, seemed to be comforted only with his company.

When he awoke, Sherlock found himself in the ugly den of drug addicts in which he had gotten himself into a week ago. He was pale, puffy-eyed, and he could easily count his bones by only touching himself. A couple of junkies that gave no signs of breathing at his side were killed by an overdose and kept him company. He blinked, feeling his dry eyes, and could only think about the bound wolf. His soulmate was suffering, somewhere. He could feel it and he knew it.

He got up and walked to the window, opening it wide, watching as the glass bounced, almost falling into the void. The streets of London looked exactly the same as nineteen years ago, only that the world had changed drastically. Sherlock had seen the world change around him so often and in so many different ways, all for worse that now nothing surprised him anymore.

A couple of years ago with the arrival of the new century, a brilliant young mind had overtaken the British government that his father had been serving. Corruption extended through the most influential parts of government, and the leader of the Neolithic Revolution raised itself with the power and the control. In just a few months, the politics of terror spread through London and, later, throughout Great Britain: the dystopians had been considered a pest. Now, being dystopian was punishable by law, and penalties ranged from going to prison to paying a fine, passing through the firing squad at dawn. In the slums of the city, Sherlock had heard that if you were interesting to the Leader, he compensated you by letting you live. And by serving him they would forgive you. But, you had to be interesting.

So for a dystopian, to know if you live or die one more day had turned into a lottery.

And the families who had dystopian children were punished severely. The government could easily command them to leave their property and possessions. Many of these people were evicted, as they couldn't afford to have a house because they could not pay the fines.

Countless had thought of emigrating, fleeing the country, but news soon came that other regimes had taken control of most European nations and had embraced the new politics of hate. Those who escaped to France from the coast of Dover never reached their destination, and the few ships that escaped from the East Coast to Ireland (which remained outside the control of the anti-dystopian and had big fights with the government of the pro cleaning north), or to the Americas, mysteriously sank on the way. Also, there were strict controls at airports and at train services.

The dystopians, who wanted to maintain a slightly marginal life, paying their fines, had a special identity card and a mark on the ear as if they were cattle. A small electronic earring facilitated the control of your pace. If you wanted to get rid of it, you had to cut off part of the ear cartilage and risk being caught by the authorities.

What had once been a source of joy and pride quickly became a social stigma of the worst kind. Often, it became a death sentence.

Sherlock extended his arm towards the outside of the house, a small arm, of a ridiculously small diameter. The pale skin was sticking to the protruding bones of the wrists. For two months he did not taste a mouthful food. The last truck with provisions for the ‘Lion’s Den’ in the neighborhood, where low profile dystopians had been confined, had passed a few weeks ago, with too much security so no one could assault it as they used to do it before.

Rationed food was not enough for anyone. People were hungry. People died. Everything began only three years ago.

The last thing he had eaten had been a piece of bread. He gave the rest of the bread and a piece of cheddar to an orphan boy living on the streets who was now under his responsibility. He was called Wiggins, Bill Wiggins. The child had a golden eagle as his animal spirit and said that he had dreamed with a salamander.

A large crow, black and with bright eyes landed on his arm, it looked as physical as if it were real, albeit with a slight translucent tint. Sherlock reached into the room and closed the window again. The animal let out a squawk, leaving something with the beak on Sherlock's outstretched hand.

Nuts. The crow had brought him a small pouch with ten nuts.

“Thank you,” he replied. He really felt it. His body had grown accustomed to the lack of food (largely thanks to the use of narcotic substances, moving freely in the Lions Den). _Hugin_ had always kept him alive, no matter how complicated the situation was. And if Sherlock was hungry, he always managed to bring him food. At least, the one that was available and easily accessible. Sherlock had tried to teach him that he should not risk it too much.

In the depths of his heart, he knew his soul mate was somewhere injured but alive. And it would not let it be killed being that way. He would not cause such pain to anyone, even an unknown stranger. And as matters stood, to survive and to find your soulmate was the only available happiness that the government could not control completely.

Sherlock caressed with the back of his index finger the feathers in _Hugin_ 's breast. He was called after one of Odin’s ravens, the Norse God. Sherlock had always liked the old myths. And the name had its own joke since it was the thoughts were the only thing capable of keeping Sherlock alive in recent times.

He ate a pair of nuts, which he opened by hitting two loose bricks hitting with each other. It was great. There were five hundred and seventy-six calories in your system for each nut. That would be enough to hold for a couple of weeks.

He dressed and opened the window again so that _Hugin_ could fly away. The good thing of the animals spirit was that they could be mistaken for the real ones if they were seen from afar, so a dystopian who had relatively common animal had more chances to go unnoticed that someone who, like his brother, exhibited a Chinese dragon.

Sherlock could have had a normal life in the "clean" area of the city, across the Thames, but it was not what he wanted. He had been in the care of Mycroft after the death of their parents. Although saying death was sugar coating the obvious lie. It would be more appropriate to say it was a murder because after the authorities found that Mycroft was a dystopian by identifying him with his dragon, he was sentenced to death. He would have been shot if it weren't for the Holmes parents to take the responsibility for it. The government accepted the change as long as Mycroft worked for him them as their personal adviser, but he would have to reside in the Lions Den, like all the other dystopians. And he could never have a partner, or they would be executed.

They would have also identified Sherlock if it had not been because _Hugin_ was perched in an oak tree, away from him and of the Scotland Yard agents. Mycroft had asked if he could be allowed to stay with his brother because he suffered a variety of Asperger that was very strong, and needed constant care as days could pass without him speaking. The agents checked Sherlock and as they didn't find his animal spirit, they decided it was 'pure' and let him go. At that time, during the first year of the new regime, Mycroft was twenty-one years old. Sherlock was sixteen. They put the tracker on Mycroft's the ear. It was an ugly black button that had a flashing green light. They didn't put any tracker on Sherlock.

Since then, they had resisted in a small house on the outskirts of The Lions Den, with Mycroft coming and going. And when there were visitors coming, Sherlock had to pretend to be abstracted with anything, and that his brother had to help him when feeding. He never spoke when there were visitors, and Mycroft spent the first months lost in the drinks, not sleeping at night and working for the Leader during the day. He never forgave himself for the death of their parents.

Mycroft's dragon had been locked in Baskerville, a center where experiments were done with animal spirits and some dystopians that were alive, hoping to get a "cure". Mycroft had been left destroyed, as the dystopians were extremely sensitive to the distance with the animal, and if they were too far it made them suffer. Sherlock once had left _Hugin_ at home while going to get food to the clean side of the city, for security reasons. But, when he stepped on Blackfriars Bridge he had to turn around, he was in agony. There was such intense physical pain that he could not imagine the ordeal that his brother was passing with the kilometers that were separating him from London to Baskerville.

Sherlock bought once the incense ‘Night Queen' when he was a little older in one of his trips to the clean area. When Mycroft came home late that night, the room smelled like his dragon did, and he could not help but strongly embrace Sherlock, with tears in his eyes.

It was the first and the last time that he saw tears in the eyes of his brother.

Weakness was not an option when working along with the Leader.

* * *

 

After leaving the nuts in Bills hideout, making sure he was eating properly and he was far from where the raids could find him, Sherlock went to his brother’s house, to restore some strength. Mycroft always made sure to have some food hidden between the floorboards, just in case. He also knew that the door of his house was open to him as well.

He sneaked into the building quietly and quickly, avoiding being seen. Officially, Sherlock Holmes had died two years ago from an overdose of cocaine. That was the way his brother had given him some freedom. If someone is dead then, you are not looking after them nor you threaten them. If someone has nothing to lose, then they cannot be coerced. So to some extent, Mycroft had become immune to their Leader.

More than once, Sherlock had tried to pry him what they had sent him to do while he was there. What would anyone not want from a political science student with great deductive skills? Mycroft, with a glass of cheap alcohol in hand and with a lost look, took a few minutes to answer. "No, Sherlock. I do not want to remember."

He would then finish his drink and go to bed, rubbing his temples. The days would pass on without any noticeable changes. Sherlock never went to high school or to university. Everything that he had learned was through practice or through the chemistry books that his brother secretly brought from the 'clean' side of the city. Sometimes, Barton Church a science teacher who could no longer teach and who lived in one of the nearby buildings gave him some books. His license and title had been withdrawn for being a dystopian. Sherlock continued learning and asking his brother the same question again and again. However, he only did it when it seemed that Mycroft came in better spirits within his everlasting anger at himself and the world. He never got an answer.

The house was completely empty, the lights off. And so they stayed. Turning them on would make it possible to know that the house was being occupied when the sole owner was not present. An accusation of trespassing private property would not help him. If the police came and saw that he was there, they would believe that he was a ghost or more likely, they would arrest him and discover his secret. His life would be over, and Mycroft would also be punished for high treason or the closest thing that had existed at the time that what was known, as a betrayal to the crown and country.

He left his old shoulder bag that was full of holes and patches on top of the table in the entrance. The building was small, a block of apartments that was falling apart. The money that Mycroft received was little and exaggeratedly low. The suits that he used in his work were provided in Buckingham, but he wasn't allowed to take them outside work areas. In addition, the ration card that gave him to buy what little food that was available in the Lions Den was barely enough to give Mycroft the adequate amount of food. It was nearing the mediocrity, but everyone was under the same condition, so everything was the same. So that's why feeding two people with a mediocre ration was asking for the impossible. Sherlock only needed some food to hang on to. In two weeks time, when there would be no more available nuts, he would begin to vomit by the lack of comestibles in its body.

And if it were not because there was someone out there still waiting for him, holding on, he would have let himself die. He knew that for Mycroft everything would be much easier if he didn't have to worry when thinking about someone discovering that Sherlock was alive. Maybe he could make the report in Scotland Yard on his supposed overdose a reality. It would be the cleanest and most logical solution. However, if Sherlock hadn't known that there was someone that was looking after him, tolerating his pain without him knowing about them and that they were probably as or more fucked up than him, he would have done it.

But Sherlock had long stopped being selfish.

He took a quick shower to remove the stench of death and drugs so that he could get a change of clothes. Additionally, he was covered in filth from being a whole week in the absence of the world because of the opiates that he had taken.

Then, when he finished, he went to the small guest room with its walls chipping off and the floor bent by the moisture to pull out the chemistry book under the bed that Mycroft had assigned him. From there, he took his own notes on the various explosives and substances. Since the reign of terror began, and chemistry began to make sense on his head thanks to the material and the teachings of Professor Church, Sherlock decided it was time to put his brilliant mind to the service of the revolution.

He had learned that information was important, and in return, he had memorized the entire map of London on his head in an incredibly accurate way. Of course, having an eidetic memory helped. Another thing that he had done with time was to trace with a map the underground lines of the city, including the subway lines that connected the two ends of London like veins. Obviously, the underground channels that passed through the Lions Den had been blocked, but they could be easily freed with a little bit of Semtex or classical dynamite.

There were also the tunnels of the sewage system and the pipelines of River Fleet, which entered until they reached to the ‘clean’ area.

It would be difficult sneak a bomb into Buckingham palace and to blow it up with the leader inside, but it wouldn't be impossible. The problem was that a sacrifice was needed, and he knew that no one would want to be the willing spare one. And he did not want to be the author of something like that. The simple idea disgusted him. So, he kept thinking about the idea and various available alternative plans.

Mycroft arrived at night when the street lamps began to light up. If he was surprised to see his malnourished brother sleeping on his sofa, he did not comment on it. He left the briefcase with the reports he had to write for the next morning on the kitchen table and began to prepare some dinner for Sherlock. Luckily, he had eaten something secretly before returning because God knew his brother needed it more than him.

Mashed boiled potatoes and an egg were all that Sherlock got dinner that night. At first, he looked at the hot plate with desire, albeit with some reluctance. He was accustomed to not eating for long periods of time, but not his brother, who had to walk among the abundant feasts on the 'clean' side, knew it was forbidden to him to eat. In addition, his job required for him to be in an ideal condition, and the regular feeding that he did not have was basically what was needed to achieve that goal.

“I ate before arriving,” Sherlock arched an eyebrow; he couldn’t believe Mycroft stealing food, “Mike gave it to me.”

Sherlock nodded. Mike Stanford was one of the few "pure" that lived on the clean side that had a semi-regular contact with Mycroft. Mike did not support the new government and he was walking on thin ice by giving food to the dystopians working there, as well as offering blankets, clothing, or any medicine that they may need. Sherlock was sure that sometime they would catch Mike, but until then, it was the closest thing to a guardian angel that they had in a long time.

After that, he attacked the food like a hungry wolf. When he finished eating his stomach hurt so much from the amount of eaten food that he even wanted to vomit, but he didn't allow himself to do that. Food was not thrown away. He felt guilty for eating the two nuts. They were two nuts less for Wiggins.

Sherlock remained sleeping on the couch for a while longer, while digestion was being done. Mycroft sat down to work at the table, filling reports with the regulatory bottle of alcohol before him. The glass was empty, untouched. That was weird. His brother's daily routine was to arrive at home, have a drink and then to continue to work. Sherlock saw his chance when he woke up and saw that Mycroft had finished reports, neatly stacked in front of him. He had his hands covering his face, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his shirt half open, and the bottle in front of him was empty even when a couple of hours ago exhibited itself new and full.

When Mycroft was drunk he would not evade the questions. When Mycroft was drunk he answered to all of the questions. And they were usually truthful.

Sherlock approached him, removing the bottle and glass, and called his name until he looked up at him. If all of the evidence weren’t pointed to the contrary, he would have sworn that his brother was sober. He had dark circles under the eyes, which were clear, cold and clear. They were clearly not the eyes of a drunken man.

"What do you do for him? What does he want from you? What do you do?" And this time, the answer came. And from that moment forward he wished he had not asked for it. "We found a group of dystopians," he said, looking at him with lifeless eyes. Alcohol and years of service with the Leader had cooled what were once the warm eyes of, his brother. The years of separation with his dragon had also affected him, souring his character. Now, the denomination "Iceman" was finally living up to its title. "And we took them up to him. Then, if it is necessary, we ... get rid of them." In the presence of Mycroft's words, Sherlock froze in place. He had expected something bad, but not as dreadful. Mycroft took his hand and squeezed it tightly, so much that it hurt. "It's fucking hell, Sherlock. Stay away from there."

* * *

 

The next day, Sherlock seemed more recovered than when he had arrived. He had slept all day, hidden in his stinky room on the top floor of the apartment. It was not until late at night that Sherlock woke up. He had heard Mycroft's footsteps make the old wood creak under his weight as he went up the narrow stairs to his room. This time, they divided the food, bread with cheese like every Monday. While they were eating, Mycroft looked at him. He waited until they stopped chewing the food, they did it slowly in order deceive their stomachs with the illusion that they would have more food inside that would really be. When he spoke, it was soft.

"Today, a child arrived at the department," Sherlock swallowed, without an appetite. Through his head flew the image of little Bill Wiggins and everything fell into place. Mycroft wouldn't have drawn that type of topic so unless it was important. He closed his eyes, not wanting to deduct anything else from his brother, no more than he had done. He did not want to hear it. He left the crust of bread left for him to eat on top of the plate in disgust. He did not realize that his hands were shaking until Mycroft grabbed them above the table. He fought the urge to be revealed and remove them from his brothers’ grip. "Did he suffer?"

"I made sure it was fast. He did not notice any pain."

Sherlock swallowed air. "Good."

With that said, Sherlock stood abruptly, the chair scraping the stone floor with a sharp screech. Mycroft closed his eyes, pursing his lips, as the younger of them fled in a firm step to his room, leaving the bread on the plate. When he got there, he sat on the bed, dizzy. The floor was spinning. Everything was unstable. All of him trembled.

He did not realize that he was lying on the bed, curled into a tight ball of skeletal members until _Hugin_ , who had come through the window, crouched into his chest. He deposited a cluster of splendid purple grapes in front of his face, pushing them with its long ebony beak. Sherlock thanked him, as always, and stroked its chest with his finger. However, this time there would be no one to share the spoils.

Neither this time nor the following ones.

* * *

 

"I met one of Jim's toys today," Finally, the monster had a name. It had been seven years since Bill's death, and Sherlock had spent every one of them focused on his plan to end it all. Although contrary to his plans, over time the government had become stronger and stronger. And the 'Lion's Den' had grown exponentially. It was as if whatever caused the birth of a dystopian was itself making it known to the world, testing the ability of the people wanting to eliminate all of them. Challenging them to kill more and more. _The more you kill, more I will make appear._

And, as logical as it was, being faced with the fall of the 'pure' population caused panic to spread everywhere and make the measures more drastic in order to control everything. In the end, nature was not helping. If not, worsening the situation.

He discovered the Leader's name when he appeared in an official statement put on the weekly report on the TV. The image barely lasted twenty seconds, but Sherlock was able to remember. And with the name and the face, the bastard's days were numbered. Sherlock was twenty-six years old, and Mycroft was thirty-one.

Apparently, he made his workers call him Jim. "I was in the lobby of Buckingham. He seemed ... pleasant.

Sherlock knew of the rumors about the "activities" and "services" Jim was asking in recent times to the dystopians that he held prisoners in exchange for sparing their lives. Whispers that spoke of servitude in all of the possible ways in which a person could be subjugated to another. They even said that they forced them to find their partners. He let them loose so that they could find them and then he made sure to make them disappear. It was as if it were a cheap soap opera to him. Also, there were talks of slavery. There were parties that were thrown in Buckingham with the upper circles of the 'pures'. There, dystopians and their animals were sources of fun and victims of all kinds of depravities.

However, the scariest thing of all was that he had a machine that was able to tell who was the couple of who. And that was making everything scarier lately.

Sherlock did not want to know the misfortune of all those dystopians. He had long surrendered in trying to empathize with them. He had enough with Wiggins, the engine that was moving his plan. It was what lit his thirst for revenge. "I do not care what that maniac does. He cannot be stopped. I do not want to know."

"Oh. This will interest you, Sherlock. It turns out that he is a dystopian," said Mike.

He had been sent to the 'Lion's Den' along with a team of doctors in order to perform a collection of samples that all of the dystopians by force had to be present. Sherlock sneaked into the hermetic exam room, passing the DNA sample to Mike, by taking the identity of one of the dead junkies in the usual smoking room. It was his only way to have five minutes alone with him. And, in a way, to smuggle contents it in a small extent. It was just enough to get by.

And of all the horrible things in the world, Mike had to take out the worst of them all. It was a curious way to raise the spirits.

"Like all. Do not think I feel camaraderie for those who are like us because you're wrong. It's no good, Mike."

"However, this is different." he pointed out, as he tied the bag full of medicine and sausages in a vacuum package around his body and under the shirt in order to take it home and avoid the police check.

"What makes him different? Is he smart? Half Blood? Does he have a cure to it?" He mocked him. But Mike denied it.

"He has turned into James' personal dog. And when I say personal dog, I mean that literally."

That got the full and complete attention and seriousness of Sherlock, who turned around to look at him, forgetting the smuggling, forgetting everything. He had told Mike about his soul mate a few years ago, after he insisted too much about it. Somehow, he eventually asked him indirectly that if he saw a sand colored wolf in Buckingham or the surrounding areas, to let him know. If his soulmate was in the service of Jim Moriarty he preferred know, as bad as it was than to remain in ignorance.

It was why that small and short conversation was so important. It was because if Jim had dared to lay his filthy hands on his soulmate, the person that gave him a reason to not end his life and stopped him in killing himself in those first three years of the dictatorship; he would kill him slowly and painfully. If his wolf was one of those people trapped in the hell that Mycroft had to come and go every day, he would then lose his mind.

"What do you mean?"

"Than Jim's dystopian is a sand-colored wolf."

That would definitely accelerate their plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
> Well, I have created this sort of experiment with the AU of the Soul Mates, because for a long time I have wanted to do something similar. It was supposed to be a One Shot, but I think that it's going to be a Short Fic. Although the ones that have been following me for a long time know how little value my calculations have ... so we will see. (Definitely not going to be a short story, my lads. The original in Spanish is nowhere near the end)  
> I wait for your opinions, let’s see if this new type of Johnlock is welcomed!  
> It’s going to get a little angsty, but I’ll warn you in advance if there is something strong going to happen so that you can skip it or not ;)  
> 


	2. Creating the Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ATTENTION: A section of this chapter contains relationships that are non-con/rape. Anyway, it's only a small section of it and if you skip it I don’t think you'll miss anything.  
> And with that said, I’m letting you read.

“The Leader requires your presence, dog.”

“Tell him that he can go fuck himself as much as he is able.”

The bucket full of icy water that fell on him made him clench his teeth and cringe, stifling a gasp. The chain that was tied to his feet jingled when he bent his legs, trying to cover himself as he trembled. The thick links of the chain tightened, exerting resistance against his trembling movements. He slowly closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cold concrete wall, remembering why he was doing this. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

He had spent a whole week locked in an interrogation room from the era where the television in color was invented and tinted glasses were necessary to maintain the identity of spying listeners safe. The room was gray and aseptic. The walls were made up of cement and brick, and in the center there was a drain. He would rather not want to imagine the reason why an interrogation room would need such thing, although he perfectly knew too well the answer to the question. His ash blond hair was long, it uncomfortably stuck to his forehead and began to rub on his irritated eyes as it fell forward. His head itched from the dirtiness stuck to it, which didn't help with him being dead cold. There were air currents that would enter through the vents, through the holes in the wall, and through the small space under the door, which was barely a few millimeters wide. And in addition to all of the harsh environment, he was naked. His clothes had been stripped off his body when he got to this place. He was forced to walk through the corridors as if he were an exhibit, until he reached to the place where he currently was. However, the only part of his body that was covered were his eyes, with a thick plush bandage. He assumed that it was necessary so that he wouldn't be able to remember the path that he was forced to walk, minimizing the risk of him possibly escaping. At one point he was able to inform himself that his possessions had been burned off.

“Get up. Now!”

He clenched his shackled hands. His poor wolf had been placed in a cage in the same room as him. The cage was electrified, creating a power grid that hurt his wolf if he tried to push his nose through the wire mesh. The animal was cowering in the small space, whimpering to the sounds of his owner suffering. He knew that he had to give up, he had to obey if he wanted to get away from all of this. However, at twenty-one years, he was hardly an adult in an unfavorable and unpleasant situation, and his youthful instinct told him not to escape in this situation. It told him to fight through it.

And if he didn’t have his hands free, he could at least use his tongue.

“Go. To. Hell.”

The blow fell heavily on his cheek, cracking his bones and hitting his face against the wall. The bastards had learned that if they wanted to hit him without leaving any visible mark they had to hit him with a wet towel, so that the weight and force of the impact was considerable. He hunched his arms over his head to protect his face, and blows fell furiously on his arm and ribs. He bit his lip to stop himself from screaming in pain, and in result he emitted low growls in protest. Near him, he could hear his wolf snarling along him, whimpering.

He thought of the black raven, in it pale eyes looking at him with sadness and helplessness. How it had stayed with him after nearly breaking its beak trying to help him escape. How it had flown down for him, despite the danger it was facing...

“Enough Ethan. Bring the dystopian upstairs. Jim is starting to get impatient. And if you leave any marks on him…”

“Calm down Moran. I was only putting the freak in his place.”

He raised his eyes in the darkness and found himself looking at the eyes of Moran's Bengal tiger touching their noses. He breathed calmly, watching as the white fangs peeked under the hairy lips. A growl came from the depths of the animal, who wagged his tail gently.

“Who are you calling a freak, you moron?” Asked Moran, tackling Ethan to a side with force.

Blinded by the glare of the open door in front of him, he blinked, his eyes aching from the clarity. Another thing they had done to keep him there had been to turn off all the lights. He had been in the dark for a whole week.

“Let’s go. Get up and don’t make me angry, puppy.”

He felt Moran's hand taking his arm with a considerable force, shaking him up to get him on his feet. He hissed when he felt the pain of the blows right where Moran was holding him. Slowly rising, he felt the tightness of the chains. Something brushed past his neck, hard and cold, tightening itself up until it made his breathing labored. The tension in his legs disappeared with a metallic clatter, and he did not flee because of the leg cramps, he felt them loose from spending so much time with them unused. He had to use all his willpower in order to prevent himself from trying to make an escape attempt. It would not do any good for him.

His hands were still bound by the shackles, so he closed them into fists, digging his nails into his palm.

_Remember why you are doing it. Remember why you are doing it…_

He heard the groan of the hinges of the door as it was being opened, and the hum of the electricity. He could only remember the electric rod which they had captured his wolf with, _Garm_. He would have never imagined that all that was needed to subdue an animal spirit was a little of voltage. And now that he knew about, he would have liked for it to never have happened.

Hearing the violent growls of _Garm_ , he could easily picture him with his sandy fur bristling, his bared fangs and bloodshot eyes. If his wolf was going to get, they were going to hurt him.

“Shh, _Garm_. It’s okay…”

The wolf continued to snarl, but its threats lowered its tone down until they became muffled warning sounds.

He felt a tug on his neck and then he understood.

They had put a leash on him.

He could feel the astral heat from Moran's Tiger at his side, walking with parsimony. Little by little, his vision got clearer, and was hardly aware of the cold metal floor of the freight lift. He waited quietly, watching the indicator. They were on the floor minus two, and they were heading to the tenth floor. He had plenty of time.

Clearing his throat, he felt his voice was thick from the lack of use.

“Why are you doing it? Why… are you helping him?”, he said hoarsely.

Moran didn’t even look at him. He was looking forward, watching the indicator with the numbers, which changed every second.

“It’s not your problem.”

He heard the tiger growl and saw how Garm looked at him, waiting for him to say something. He shook his head and the wolf sat on its hind legs, very close to him, without stopping to watch at the tiger and its dystopian occasionally.

“But you…”

Moran turned around to look at him. His expression was hard to read, but he wasn’t intimidated.

“I told you that it’s not your problem. Now shut your mouth.”

The doors of the lift opened and they appeared in a clean room, full of corridors and secondary rooms. Probably they were in an empty floor of an office building, but with the interrogation room this could only be Scotland Yard.

At the end of the corridor, there was a lone figure with its back against him. It was talking on a cellphone.

“Ethan, take the dog directly to Buckingham. Let them put him in the outside cages.”

He suddenly got into a panic mode. They couldn’t separate him from _Garm_. They couldn’t.

He squirmed, trying to avoid the inevitable movement, but Moran pulled from his leash and passed a leg under his feet, making him fall on his knees and banging against the hard ground. His wolf growled and jumped towards Moran in order to bite him, however Ethan’s electric rod fell on top of the animal. A spark of static was heard and his wolf shimmered, falling on the floor, moaning. He felt the discharge in his own body, traveling him entirely. He tried to launch himself towards Ethan again and again, but he couldn’t reach him.

“No! Please, stop!”

Another jerk from the leash pulled him towards Moran, making him fall on his back. He still had his hair wet from the freezing water, and the leather of the collar, it was without a doubt leather, began to irritate his skin, and it could maybe even cut it.

Ethan disappeared through the lift with _Garm_ , and he saw how the doors closed. As the apparatus went down, the pain still went through his body. It was as if he had a hand holding his heart, squeezing every time more, cutting his respiration.

Moran’s hand closed again around his arm, pulling him, and once he shakingly stood up, he pushed him forward.

“Walk.”

And he did. He walked with his feet intertwining from the pain and the lack of use. He continued until they walked into the wide room where the man with the back facing them continued talking with his phone.

“... and if they blow another of the barricades in the tunnels, I’ll make sure that someone takes up your place. Is it clear, Dimmock? Good. I expect the report tonight.”

They made him stop just two meters from the suited man, who had hanged and was rubbing his face with his hands, as if everything were very complicated. He turned aside and looked at another man. He was a redhead, dressed in a three-piece suit and wearing an old umbrella in his hand, at which that time he was clinging tightly, until knuckles turned white.

He had sometimes seen symptoms like those, in the shelters of the dystopians which stood in the outskirts of the ‘Lion Den’. They were located under the bridges in the banks of the Thames to assist those who were wounded, but the few that were able to escape from the ‘clean’ side after being captured and separated from their animals. It was the distance, the pain inflicted to their other side or their spirit, which caused the physical pain. And the same thing was happening to him. He wondered what they were doing with the animal of this poor dystopian, and where it was located. And how long it had been there.

“Seb, I’ll need you to attend the barricade at Embankment station. In the Bakerloo and Northern line. And if it’s necessary, make them open a gap and make Thames fall on top of them. I don’t care. Go and fix it. Now!” The man screamed, and he swore that he had seen one of his veins in his temple throb. Moran hesitated. He couldn’t let go of the leash or he could let him go. “Ugh, for the love of God and the Blessed Virgin. Give Holmes the leash and go! NOW!”

He saw how the leash changed hands rapidly, and Moran running towards the lift, with his tiger trailing behind him.

Holmes looked embarrassed, maybe uncomfortable. He looked at his boss almost unblinkingly, he was holding the leash in a way that implied that at any time he was going to throw it away, but when Jim opened his eyes, his grip turned firm and his features cooled off. He shivered helplessly.

“Well. I can’t believe it’s you, wolfie. You have been a very bad boy”, said Jim, with a nasty smile on his face. He approached him and stared. He felt bad about having to look up to center on his eyes on him, but he did it anyway, standing at attention. “You have been for a long time trying to escape from me, but now it’s over. Isn’t he naughty, don’t you think Holmes?”

“Tremendously.”

He pursed his lips. Holmes was answering indifferently, with a neutral tone. As if he were trying to control everything that was happening inside him.

“For how long has he tried to escape?”

“Two years and a half.”

Jim opened his mouth and eyes, as if he were genuinely surprised with the information. As if he had never received it.

“Impressive.”

He noticed that the chain was loose. Holmes’ arm was tense, but he wasn’t putting any pressure on it. Which only meant that to a certain point he was at his side, right?

“You see?” Asked Jim, with a smile, touching his chest with a finger, satisfied. “You’re special, Johnny.”

John tensed. He did not expect Jim to know his name. In fact, he wished that he hadn’t known. He noticed the Leader’s eyes go over his body up and down, and when he licked himself, he gagged, remembering for the first time since he was in the room that he was naked. He wondered, with some black humor, if he would get killed if he vomited over him, and what would his face look like. What he found most surprising was that he noticed that he wasn’t much older than him.

When the news of a new order reached every corner of Great Britain, John thought it would be some type of trick from the radicals that some old glory would be trying to regain the position and change the things a bit up. When everything began to change and the people began to disappear from the streets, when the dystopians began to get marked and ‘reassigned’ to another area of the city, in his head the ‘Leader’ had always looked like an extremely intelligent adult. However, the person that he had in front of him was… disappointing.

“But you’re just only a child.”

It seemed that the information was not well received, because Jim’s face transformed itself into an angry expression full of excessive violence and madness. John felt that he had just signed his death warrant. The gentle pull of the leash told him that he shouldn’t have said that.

Jim stepped forward when Holmes’ voice stopped him.

“I have just been informed that the French Governor has just arrived at the meeting hall along with the Austrian Representative. You should leave now, or you will not arrive on time.”

Jim stopped halfway, glaring at John with his eyes during a few seconds. He closed his eyes as it take a human heart to beat a few times, and when he opened them, he seemed much more calm.

_He has completely lost his head. He’s mental._

“Damn frogs that don’t know how to behave… I’m leaving. Help him get dressed and take him from here. I want him clean and in my room when I finish the meeting”, he ordered, straightening his jacket. He grabbed John’s face with one hand, clenching his jaw with his nails. “See you later, Johnny”, he whispered in his ear, as if they were lovers and that their big secret. He bit his ear and left.

The nauseas came back with more force, at the same time a pang of pain went through him. He grunted, cowering.

“If you want to die, John, there are better and cleaner ways to achieve it rather than insulting him”, said Holmes. He dropped the leash and threw him a ball full of white clothes. “Put this on. Fast. We need to be in Buckingham in half an hour.”

John took the clothes with his hands, still shackled, and looked at them. They were basic, made of white cotton, undyed. The short-sleeved t-shirt and the pants were baggy. It looked more like a sporty tracksuit than anything else.

Holmes fingers pressed some point in John’s shackles, which were electronic, introducing the opening key. With a click, the metallic plate that closed his hands fell to the ground, and John saw his opportunity.

“Don’t try it, unless you want to die. And I believe that would be inappropriate.”

John looked at him. Holmes watched at him from his position, alongside a window. His eyes were closed and his jaw was clenched.

He noticed for the first time in his appearance, since he entered the room for the first time. The suited man had dark circles under the eyes, and licked his lips at a regular basis. John knew those symptoms. They were the reactions of a drinker. His body under under the suit was little for a man his age, almost bordering on anorexia. The locator chip on his right ear told him that he was currently living in the ‘Lion Den’, and in not very good conditions. He presented mild symptoms of malnutritions, maybe even in the early stages.

However, and, despite the circumstances, he was not in a completely unfavorable situation. John had treated some cases of people from the ‘Lion Den’ which had a closed stomach from the lack of food available, with their bellies swollen but empty of all food. When they reached the mobile stalls of the health care under the bridges, the medics knew that there was nothing that they could do to help them rather than give them shelter until they died.

There was one type of food that could probably save their lives, but in London it could only be found in the Royal Hospital, and they could clearly not access it.

“Would you try to kill me if I tried?”

Holmes looked at him, tired.

“If you ask me, go. However, there are guards in every corner. This is a building belonging to Scotland Yard. You couldn’t walk more than twenty steps before they catch you. You’ve been caught John. The less time you take to accept that your life has ended, the more you will survive.”

John stared down again at the clothes in his hands, until the cotton slid across his skin. He could feel his wolf, somewhere, very far from him.

The image of the crow return to his mind. The dream of that night had been so comforting…

Mycroft rebound the collar to the strap and closed his hands between the electronic shackles. John looked at him, surprised by the new replacement.

“I’m sorry. They’re orders.”

John nodded. If it was true that he would not be able to escape, at least it would make life easier for Holmes, who seemed to not enjoy his work at all.

He could not stop dwelling over his head, thinking what could Jim possibly want from him. He had heard stories about what they were doing to the dystopians in Buckingham, but he preferred to think that they were just that: stories. Holmes led him to the lift and both were alone in the metal space as they descended to the ground floor.

“I’m not going to say what will happen to you because I’d be lying", said the man beside him without looking at him. John saw how his hand clung tightly to the handle of the umbrella again. Suddenly he cringed lightly, grimacing with undisguised pain and to lean on him in order to be able to stand. “But you will learn to control it… if you live long enough.”

John knew what he meant without asking.

“For how long have you been working for him?”

Holmes took a pair of deep breaths before answering him.

“It will be four years since I started. But it feels much more.”

When they reached the ground floor, Holmes snapped to attention and straightened up, changing his face. So much that had he not have been looking at him, John doubted that he would have been able to appreciate that under the mask of coldness, there was a man. He stepped forward, pulling the leash around his neck. The policemen that were standing at the entrance of the central parted, careful to not touch John. He couldn’t understand why there were so many objections against them when they wouldn’t have had any problem in throwing things at his head, insult him and push him when he had arrived the first time. He hadn’t seen their faces as he had his eyes bandaged, but he hadn’t moved from building to building in the whole week, so he was pretty sure that none of them had been absent that day.

He remained in silence, throwing glares at the agents who, were supposed, to maintain the order and public safety, seeing for the welfare of the people, and not assuring themselves that they would be captured, tortured and denigrated. Had had the authorities been bribed at the beginning of the new regime it said much about the current state of the government.

John’s martial steps were beginning to make the policemen that were watching him feel uncomfortable, up to the point that many of them looked away, intimidated.

John had been a part-time emergency medic in the small hospital posts under the bridge, yes. However, he also was, and above all, a rebel.

He was one of the causes why a battalion was trying to blow up the barricade of the underground tunnels at Embankment station. Because that was the distraction. His real goal had been to recover the District line at the blockage of Putney Bridge station. He had been the captain that who was in charge of the assault to point E. And it was to be expected that he would be captured. He was playing with his life everyday.

His best friend, Sally Donovan, a guerrilla which was a former agent of the old Scotland Yard which had a panther as an animal, had been engaged in his side in his squad in Northumberland, and more than once she had asked him why hadn’t he engaged to only be a medic, knowing that he still had a chance to change. Sally had joined the rebels when she had learned from a dream that her soul mate had died.

“I don’t have anything to lose, John. But you do. What about your soul mate? What would happen to them if you get caught?”

“They won’t be able to catch me.”

Within the group they had a bit of variety. A pair of Spanish soldiers, Christian and Silvia, who had arrived in the early months of the change and were trapped there, an Irish woman called Wanda with a fondness for explosives which was very disturbing, three frenchmen who had survived to the attack on their platoon, and a pair of retired soldiers from the US Marine Corps, which the dictatorship had caught them and closed the fronteers while they were on holidays in London.

He could still remember how they had armed themselves that morning. They knew that their group was part of the special mission in which had to provoque and trip over their feet, as they could die any day by a stray bullet or a poorly controlled explosion. They also knew that they risked their lives more than any group, but it did not seem to matter to them. Silvia had been the first one to venture into the tube tunnel, with the flare lit to illuminate the way.

“We’re going to put those bastards in the place that they deserve!”

That was the last time John was with the whole group. When he separated to give them coverage while they lit the fuse, he was knocked out and taken away. The last thing that he heard was the withdrawal, and how his group scattered around, hiding themselves in the many hideouts of the sewers and the old ventilation corridors.

He wished he would have listened to Sally’s words.

It took less than he had thought to get to the black car with its tinted windows that was waiting for them, parked in the sidewalk in front of the building. Holmes made him climb to the passenger seat, tying his hands to the door. Then, he moved to the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“I know why you are here John. I know who you sister and your mother are, and I know where they are located”, said Mycroft, pressing a button in the glove compartment. John looked at him in horror, squeezing his hands into fists. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Jim doesn’t know about them, and if he figures it out, it won’t be from me. Give me a little credit, Captain.”

The mentioning of his rank made an icy finger climb up his back.

“How…?”

“I haven’t been spying on you, if it’s what you are thinking. I have only observed. You walk like someone in the army would walk, but you are too young to have been able to enlist yourself before this started, so surely you belong to the rebels. By the way you behave, you have discipline and authority, so that suggests a certain range. Not so low to be Lieutenant, but not high enough to be Higher, so it’s clear that you are a Captain. From the Northumberland group, from what I have understood. In the ‘Lion Den’ there were some comments the other day that they were ambushed in the tube and one of them was taken. I also know that you are a doctor by the look of your hands. They are firm, secure and prepared for hard jobs. Besides, I think I’ve seen you in one of those mobile stations under the Millennium bridge sometime,”

John blinked in surprise. He could now understand why Jim wanted Holmes to be at his side. To be able to know everything about a person by just looking...

“Then why are you here? Were you also captured by them?”

Holmes laughed. It was a serious and humorless laugh. His hands were gripping to the wheel while he slowed down, stopping at the light at Piccadilly.

“You could say that. The authorities found me and condemned me to death, but my parents occupied my place. Moriarty offered me a job at his side in exchange for accepting the exchange and for me to be able to take my little brother with me. He also… well. Died.”

When he said it, he looked at John, and something in his eyes made him think that the last thing was not entirely true, but did he not dare say it out loud for fear that someone or something could be recording their words.

He nodded.

“I am sorry. Can I ask how he died?”

“Cocaine overdose.”

John frowned.

“Did he… regularly consume it?”

He had seen drug addicts in the smoking rooms in the ‘Lion Den’. There were many, as well as brothels and other… recreational centers. In the end, it was a way to gain a little bit of extra  food and the basics for survival. John didn’t judge those who worked there, or those who, cornered by the hunger, would seek refuge in the drugs, which were almost given away. But he could not help think how someone who could not barely pay for a meal would precede the pleasure to something as basic as eating to maintaining alive.

The major cause of mortality in the ‘Lion Den’ were the overdoses, right after the malnutrition.

“He did. I tried… to stop him. Several times, but it was useless to argue with him. He had Asperger syndrome”, he added. The car started when the light turned green, and they set off towards Buckingham through the now cleared streets. “His name was Sherlock.”

* * *

 When they arrived at Buckingham, John was moved to one of the upper floors, following the large and luxurious rooms. The golden decorations were making him feel sick. All of the food that you could buy with that… just one of the columns were enough for fifty families to sustain themselves in the ‘Lion Den’.

Watching scenery through the window of the car had been horrible. After years of living in the ‘Lion Den’, where time seemed to have fallen back two centuries and the streets were dark, where the asphalt was chipped, cracked and bulging, and electricity was only active for two hours a day, and none of them was during the night. Where people washed their clothes in the dirty waters of the Thames because they couldn’t use the washing machine, where children younger than five didn’t know what a car was because in the streets in the ‘Lion Den’ were little to no use and gasoline and car maintenance were too expensive for the people living there…

It was strange to see again the streets of London in which he grew up in, in the London where there were green parks and people were cared, where the streets oozed with life, and traffic was suffocating, but steady, it was as if an immense and invisible heart would pump it through the veins of the city… blood made up of metal and gasoline… He grew up in a London where the traffic lights would work and the streetlights were promptly lit when the light left the horizon and weren’t turned off until dawn appeared… Where children played without fear of being assaulted by the authorities.

It was a London where no one had an animal along with them. It was a London where the people were so alone and lost as if they were meteorites, wandering in the cold and vast space.

Right now, in the luxurious room, being baroque until it was enough, Holmes had made him have a bath. The simple smell of soap made him want to cry. It was real soap and not soap made up of grease and caustic soda, which was harsh and unpleasant. The water in the bath was also warm, without the need of being boiling against his skin by the heat of the fire, or freezing and being from the Thames, which happened when the gas broke down. And when he was little he never wanted to have a bath… _For God’s sake, what a delight_ … He would have wished to have a longer bath, but remembering why he was here and who was waiting for him made the desire he had to have a bath fly away.

He emerged from the water quickly and, when he went back to get the clothes, they were gone. When he asked Holmes about the clothes, he said it was better that way.

Again, he felt like vomiting.

The leash went back to his neck, tying him to the ground, however, the electronic shackles didn’t come back. John raised an eyebrow when Holmes grabed a gun, similar to that of the tatooists that are going to insert a piercing, but with a round and flat lid that was colored in black around the trigger.

“I’m sorry, but if he comes back and it’s not on you...”

John stood still, feeling the cold in his bare skin. The windows were closed, but the mere air circulating around the room was enough to make him shiver.

Or maybe it was only the stress of him knowing what will happen to him when Moriarty crossed the door.

He felt the cold of the cotton with medical alcohol cleaning the area of the puncture, and gritted his teeth before he felt the sharp sting in the ear from the needle that contained the locator chip, and a flash of pain that ran down his spine. He resisted the urge to kick Holmes to get rid of him.

“I have seen others that have arrived here before you. And I have seen many others go out. If you want my advice, the best thing is to not fight it back. What's about to happen, will happen whether you like it or not. And the more you resist, the longer he’ll prolong it”, he pointed, leaving the gun in a drawer. He turned John's face to wipe the blood from his ear. “I wish we had met under different circumstances, John. I have the feeling we would have been good... collaborators.”

John smiled.

“Your animal...”

Holmes smiled.

“A blue chinese dragon. It’s called _Tatsu_.”

“But that’s Japanese.”

The redhead’s smile grew wider, and John swore that this time, it had reached his eyes.

“Great observation, Captain. I hope, sincerely, that we don’t see each other again.”

John would have taken it as an insult, but after thinking about it a few seconds, he asked himself if it was some kind of friendly farewell, as if he were genuenly wishing him luck. Holmes seemed as the typical person in charge of cleaning Moriarty’s shit. If he were the one responsible of the disappearances of the dystopians that were no longer necesary, and as John tought, he knew that truthfully, that as a farewell it wasn’t one of the worst.

He extended his hand.

“John Hamish Watson.”

He stared at it for a moment and shook it vigorously.

“Mycroft Holmes. I wish you all the luck in the world.”

And with that said, he left the room, closing the doors after him.

* * *

John had just returned from a reconnaissance mission around the perimeter, when he met Ethan, who was looking for him.

He had also just turned twenty.

John had grown little during those seven years, and because of that he had been shorter than the majority of his colleagues working on Jim’s entourage. He was stronger and more agile, and he was able to keep fit by using the little free time that the Leader allowed him to continue training, and it was all as a reward for his work.

A year after entering Moriarty’s service in order to protect his group, the rebels and his own family, John would have felt revulsion for someone in his situation, and because now, after so many years of wear he had reached a point where he had really stopped caring if anything dangerous happened to his body. He sincerely hoped that the situation that he was in would change someday. That the madness he was surrounded in would disappear and everything would go back to how it was before Jim changed him, but he knew it was nothing but a dream. And dreams were for children.

Those seven years had tanned his skin, his mind, his body and his heart. He was harder, stronger and more experience than when he had been when he was captured. He began to reach his thirties. He had traces of a beard in his face, and his eyes, although young, they looked like those of  an old man, tired and wise, they were the eyes of someone who had seen too many things. Someone who had lived too much.

John had discovered that Jim had a talent to wear down those that were around him. It was as if he knew exactly how to extract the vitality of their bodies, how to consume their hopes, until nothing mattered except the concept of survival. Until you became an automaton of perpetual motion with a list of tasks that had to be complete before collapsing on the hard mattress in a narrow and wet room.

He could remember with clarity the first day that he had stepped into Buckingham becoming Jim’s plaything. The day that he learned that each and every one of the rumours that ran by the ‘Lion’s Den’ didn’t only reflect with cruel details what happened everyday at the other side of the river, but they fell short. The only thing that he hoarded with certain affection, was the conversation that he had with Mycroft, whom he had not seen since then, although he knew that he was fine thanks to secondary sources, such as Molly Hooper.

“Jim wants to see you, Watson”, Ethan said, with a certain derision. He carried a rifle on his shoulder. He probably came from one of the lines that connected with the ‘Lion’s Den’.

John pulled out the gloves of his attire, flexing his fingers. He sighed, frowning. He knew that this day was coming.

The first time that Jim wanted to see him was the day that the was captured.

After waiting nearly five minutes, completely naked and tied with the leash to the ground, he finally arrived. He was unfastening his tie, and when he saw him standing there he stopped, watching him. John came to attention, staying still, as much as his nerves and his own body allowed him, and albeit that, he could feel the accelerated heartbeats, pumping adrenaline through his system, and his accelerated respiration. Eyes fixed on the face of Moriarty, as he watched him.

“Well, well. It seems that Holmes has done a good job with you Johnny. You look breathtaking.”

John gritted his teeth, without losing sight of Moriarty. He did not struggle, he didn’t move. He did not even try to escape when Jim bent down to untie the knot that tied the strap to the ground, and took the leash to pull him towards a pair of white doors on the other side of the room.

“I'm going to teach you Johnny. I’m going to tame you.”

Jim brought him to a room where a double bed lay. Morgan’s tiger was lying in a corner, and John looked for him around the room, without success. He would probably not be far off. Perhaps he was standing guard at one of the gate, in case he tried anything. When Jim tied the strap to the bed and then held him, tying his hands on either side of the headboard, and his feet to the legs, when he began to feel something akin to panic. He frantically sought a way out, a way to escape, but all of them went with assaulting Jim if he could even break free, and all of them confronted the security when he would leave the room. He tried to regulate his breathing, remembering the words of Mycroft. ‘ _If you want my advice, the best thing is to not fight it back. And the more you resist, the longer he’ll prolong it._ ’ He wondered if he had also experienced the same.

And all that he could think when he felt Jim’s hands over his body, was that the rumors were true. They were damn certain.

The dystopians weren’t only targets to kill or torture for the Leader and his entourage.

The dystopians were someone that would warm up their bed. The dystopians were their toys.

John turned his head in order to stare at the eyes of the tiger, which looked at him as if it were bored, it was as if he had seen this scene so many times that made him find it all the same. He wagged his tail slowly from time to time, and kneaded the carpet with its claws. John stared into its eyes again as he felt the movement of the mattress when Moriarty climbed into the bed after him. Which made him start to disconnect his survival instincts, which sounded like a warning alarm in his head, yelling at him to turn around and break Jim’s face.

_Remember why you are doing it. Remember why you are doing it..._

Harriet and his mother were ‘pure’. They had never shown any symptoms of dystopia and it was why when his father died and the regime began, that John knew that he had leave his home to keep them safe. If the government discovered him there, he could not think what they would to them. So he disappeared, leaving a note. He moved on his own feet towards the ‘Lion’s Den’, bypassing the chip controls. And when, in one of his visits and wanderings through the subway tunnels, he found the base of the rebels in the old station of Mordan, practically out of the city in the Northem line, he decided that this was where he belonged.

The vents had become fireplaces, and the food that they received came to them periodically through anonymous donations. Some people even escaped far enough from the sight of the frontier and went hunting for a few months until they came back, with enough pieces to put them in salt and hold a couple more months. They were generally saved for the winter, when the food became scarce even in the ‘Lion’s Den’.

It was there where he was given a new family, where he joined the resistance and learned the trade of being a doctor from one of the surgeons that had retired from the army when the superiors were purchased by the Leader. It was there, sleeping in the subway cars that had been adapted to make them into barracks that were livable, where he met Sally and the rest of his team.

It was there that he was given hope, when he thought that there was nothing good in the world.

If he was kept prisoner of Jim, he could pass important inside information to his team through clandestine letters, encrypted messages, using the old German ENIGMA machines from World War Two, which they stole from the British Museum, on the radio frequencies that no one was watching, and encrypted codes written in ancient Egyptian. If he was kept prisoner of Jim, he could keep his family safe, away from his claws.

Keep your friends close and your enemies even more.

Well, John could not get closer to his enemy. Unfortunately.

Saying that he didn’t scream at some point in the night would give too much credit. Jim had made sure that every single moment of the process would result in fucking hell. Preparation? For what? What he intended was to mark him, not to pleasure him. The phrase that was repeated the most times during the endless hours, was one that would haunt John in his deepest nightmares.

“You’re a pet Johnny. You’re my pet. And I’m going to _tame_ you. I’m going to _make you bleed_. I’m going to make you _burn_.”

He lost count the times that he was hit with the belt, or the many times that he was bitten until he would bleed. Or when he picked a knife and began to cut him to just see the blood flow out and then lick it. Or when he circled his neck with his hands, with unexpected strength due to his constitution, until he was on the verge of unconsciousness. John slid into a haze in which made him aware of everything that was happening, but all felt like a dream.

When everything finished, Moran entered and made a wobbly John get dressed with the white clothes which he had arrived in, and took him to the infirmary, John understood why they used such white linen.

The blood of his wounds and the tear that they surely had, stained the cotton without dyeing the garments, and it was as if he was going naked.

John did felt himself naked when the people that they were passing by looked at him, still being pulled by the leash. Some with compassion and understanding. Others dryly. There were many that were mocking. Ethan was among them. When he arrived at the infirmary, Molly Hooper attended him, carefully and delicately. They had made her come from St. Bart’s in order to attend him, and it seemed that it wasn’t the first time that someone was in the same state as him.

John held, stoically, until the following night arrived. They let him sleep attached to one of the beds in the infirmary. He still wore the leash around his neck, but there were now thick layers of bandages, separating the skin from the leather. All of him looked like a mummy, full of bandages, patches, and stitches, in the places where the blows and the cuts were too deep. He also had bluish marks throughout all of his body, which he wished not to look at. When he lay back, he felt all of the punctures that his aching body suffered. In the intimacy of the closed and solitary infirmary, he let his tears fall down. He felt dirty, broken and abandoned.

He had always thought that he could be happy. That he would find the a way to avoid the dangers of the world until he could find his other half, but now that the darkness had bitten him, tearing and dragging him to the shadows, he felt as part of it. How would anyone want to love him after that, even if it were his other half? Why would anyone waste their time in piecing something that was so broken that he himself couldn't recognize? He could hear his wolf howling in the distance, expressing his pain.

That night, he dreamt with the crow again. And this time, he saw himself tied up with thick chains to a black moss-covered stone throne. No matter how many attempts that he made to break himself free, he did not succeed, and the neither the raven could. But the simple fact that he stayed with him the rest of the night, was enough to renew his spirits.

Perhaps he was already broken, and that had no remedy. But at least, he would be the greatest pain in the ass that James Moriarty had ever had. For as long as he could endure it.

To hell with the advice that Mycroft gave him.

So the next time Jim required his presence, he resisted. And the one after. And another and another, until it had been six months that he had gone in and out of the infirmary. When Molly complained about his condition, in front of his face, he decided it was time to stop. So the next month, when he was brought to Moriarty’s Hall, he was obedient. He did everything that he asked him to do and he never protested. When everything finished, faster than usual, Jim released the leash.

“Very good Johnny. I enjoy it that way. Good boy.”

_Welcome, pet._

“Good,” He replied at Ethan, without looking at him. He lowered his gun and discharged it, disarming it before storing it in its assigned locker.

He took off the essential part of the uniform and then closed his locker, towards his cursed fate.

“That’s it! Run with your master, you little bitch.”

John didn’t even think about it. Had he done so, he would have probably not done it, but Ethan Scott was getting on his nerves...

He grabbed his Sig Sauer and shot him in the leg, outside of the zone occupied by the bone. The bullet entered and exited cleanly, piercing his flesh. He placed the gun back to his belt and when he entered the living room, he found him at a desk, surrounded by the paperwork.

During the time that he had been working, John had managed to pass tons of information to the other side, although his effort had cost him. And, apparently, his sacrifice was bearing fruit. They had contacted with a young chemist who had managed to move to the clean side of the city, but had not yet given them the address or his name. He signed all of his warnings with an S, and had a brilliant plan to overthrow Jim’s government. The only problem was that they only had one occasion to act, and they had to do it right the first time, which was why the process was going so fucking slow. John could not wait to get out of this hell.

“That was fast Johnny! Did you miss me?” John grunted and approached the desk, avoiding answering. Jim leaned back in his chair, placing his feet on the wooden desk. He snorted, “Bah! You and Seb are always the same at communicating. Cavemen! There are more words in the dictionary than monosyllables."

“I just arrived from Rotherhithe Tunnel, what the hell has happened here?”

Jim sighed dramatically.

“Those filthy monsters have been raiding food trucks _again_. None of my agents have been able to stop them. I want you to go there and get rid of them. Take any team you want with you, but I want Ethan to accompany you.”

John smiled a moment before containing himself.

“Ethan is indisposed. He has just gone to the infirmary.”

“And why is that?”

John read the report of the mission and then put it back on the table.

“He’s been shot in the leg. I’m going to take Dimmock.”

The tone that he had used must have made Jim suspicious, but he said nothing. He grabbed an apple from his desk, and started playing with it when John saluted and went straight towards the door.

“I’m bored, _pet_.”

John tensed for a moment. He clenched his eyes tightly, with his hands tense on both sides of his body. He took a long breath.

_Remember why you are doing it..._

“Of course, Jim”

The double doors of the room closed with the click of a latch being moved in place.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Send love to beautiful Iglublue12, who made this translation possible. You can send her kudos and comments by visiting her translation of this fic at Fanfiction.net, which is posted at her profile.  
> Thank you for reading and supporting this story with kudos and comments!


	3. Outlining the Contour

Fleet’s sewage system smelled of humidity, mud and dirty water. The seaweed and dirt accumulated at the edges, creating passages practically safe for those that wanted to adventure through them.

Or, they were by default, for those that really needed to transit through them.

“Remember me another time what are we doing here, in addition of being covered in mud and shit.”

John pointed with the flashlight of his rifle towards one of the corners of the spacious suburban corridors of London, scaring a rat and making it squeal while it ran through the pathway until it reached the area filled with shadows again. The smell of the area was practically vomit inducing, but John was starting to get used to it. It wasn't the first time that he was destined to a place like that, so he was hardly aware of the pestilential stench coming from the stagnant waters and the algae.

“Jim has had another of his hunches.”

John kicked a stone and waited for that to happen for a moment in his frustration. He was doing everything possible to make noise, discouraging anybody to come closer, and warning the dystopians that they could hide there if they moved aside when the group passed. Dimmock was, along with Ethan and Moran, one of Moriarty’s faithful followers.

Once, John had known him as an important member of the resistance, but after being captured, things began to change. He began been seen with the groups made up of the ‘pure’, protecting the borders and standing guard on the bridges and the pipes of Fleet. That was certainly nothing new.

Sebastian Wilkes was at their heels, with the machine gun over his shoulder and a lit cigarette between his lips, illuminating with a red dot the darkness.

“Well, the next time that he has another of those lashes, he can look for another person. I’m not a clerk, neither a tin soldier,” He complained, throwing the cigarette butt into the mud.

John continued staring, accelerating his steps a little to move ahead. He slipped through one of the corridors, which he knew, had no end. He walked slowly through the water, trying to not move it much, keeping each breath to a minimum, hoping to make the least possible noise. There was a strange smell in the hallway, something that had nothing to do with the natural stench of the area. It was something he hadn’t smelled in a long time.

He ducked when he saw dark spots in the mud. There was some black dust that flashed dimly when he pointed it with the focus of the flashlight. He picked up a little of it with his fingers and rubbed it between his thumb and index before he brought a little to his tongue. He spit it out nothing more than trying it, with a strong grimace of disgust. It was gunpowder, without a doubt. He blinked, frowning. Why would gunpowder be there? He raised the flashlight of his rifle, pointing towards a dark corner of the other side.

“Is everything right over there, Johnny?” Asked Wilkes. John could perfectly hear his laughter from there, bouncing off the damp brick walls covered with mould, as if they were in a horror movie.

John’s eyes, which started to get itchy from being down there and the lack of sleeping hours, came upon several opened boxes where, probably, would have contained several tons of gunpowder. All of them had the biohazard symbol that the rebel dystopians used to employ to mark their cargoes. It was a small private joke. John’s shoe removed all of the gunpowder in the ground and mixed it all up with the water and the mud, before returning to the group, trying to keep his poker face from faltering as he approached the main network.

That could only be the work of the resistance, from the crazy chemist, from _S_. He wondered what they were planning, and if they were, whatever it was, if it would occur soon. Every morning he woke up if that would be the day. If finally something would explode and destroy everything ahead. If someone would enter his room screaming that the Leader had died. If his wolf would appear there, looking for him out of his electrified cage in the old stables.

And in his most optimistic awakenings, if he opened his eyes and he found himself staring and a black raven and his dystopian.

After those awakenings, the reality tasted more like food made up of pure dry earth than any other day. But he took a sip of water and it seemed as if the ball stuck in his throat would fall slowly, freeing him at least a little.

He could already see the lights of the other two flashlights, and was able to listen to the conversation between the two militants, when he jumped, startled by the screech of a rat that he had stepped on its tail. He pointed the gun and almost came close to shooting at it.

“... and I swear that I would have fucked her.”

“Who? You? Don’t make me laugh, Wilkes,” mocking Dimmock. He then looked at John and raised an eyebrow. “Is everything alright?”

John swallowed and nodded.

“Yes, everything in order. I stepped on a bloody rat,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose.

Dimmock sniggered.

“Yeah right, like the others. Let’s see if we can finish the round and we can–”

A loud explosion interrupted his sentence, producing a loud crash making the ground shake. They crouched, standing in guard, when the first explosion was soon followed by another. John’s heartbeat quickened, and while a part of him wished fervently that it were Buckingham what had been blown in the air, his gut feeling was telling him that something horribly wrong was going on.

The gunfire was the next thing that they heard. That, and the sirens of the ambulances and the police. John’s mind flew towards another direction, to other places, other possibilities. Perhaps, in his desperation, he had imagined that all of that was part of their plan, and this was just another isolated incident. A gas leak... it could be anything. However, the shots were clearly revealing. When there was a third explosion, John began to fear for other things.

The civilians.

He may not be in the “national army” by his own voluntary decision, but that did not mean that he was exempt his responsibility to ensure the good of the community. And not all of the ‘pures’ were guilty, at the same time that not all of the dystopians were good people. He could not fit everybody in a bag and simply wait he wasn’t wrong with his decision when he set it on fire. Although he could go and find some justification for the certain small number of casualties and collateral damage, that was something he wasn’t willing to play with.

The three ran towards the exit of the tunnels, going back over their steps, and climbed up the emergency stairs until they emerged through the passage that bordered the Thames, by the clean side of the city. When John stuck his head out of the hole and was able to look towards the horizon, the first thought to cross his mind was that London was in flames.

But not all of the city burned. Simply there had been periodic bursts here or there, big clouds of smoke in the night, and fire, lit fires that could be seen from where they were as if they were very close, despite the apparent distance between them. It took only a new detonation for him to understand what was happening.

The wall, the giant concrete wall that surrounded the city as a containment measure, was being demolished. And, by judging the reaction of the security forces under Jim’s orders, it hadn’t been his own idea.

John ran, holding the communicator that he wore attached to his shoulder, giving orders and receiving new data from the receiver in his ear. He held his weapon with force, giving orders while they were boarding a police van that was passing through there and was taking them towards the affected area of the first explosion. The preliminary report suggested that the explosion was caused by a large amount of Semtex and gunpowder, near the channelling of the Thames in the main wall. The wall was built to protect London during the first years of the government. Initially, its existence had been justified with the idea that it was the best for everybody because it served protection against the external dystopians and against the armies of other governments that wanted to exterminate their way of life. In John’s opinion, the wall was a fence to prevent them from escaping, besides the whimsical dream of a mad child. Who built walls like those in these days?

After they gave them the full report, the van stopped and John went out first. He didn’t want to hurt the dystopians from the resistance if he could prevent it, but his cover had a priority, and not everyone had good intentions in mind. There was nothing that could assure them that it was an attack by the rebels.

After running through the rubble of what was once the London Wall, listening to the people screaming and the sirens of the ambulances and the police trying to stop the disaster, John stopped behind a considerably large piece of concrete. He checked his rifle ammunition, adjusting his uniform and waited until Dimmock and Wilkes came to his side.

“So the plan is...?”

John poked his head to look over the coverage when he saw that someone was pointing towards them and hid in time to prevent a bullet in his head.

“To not die and to stop this, if that’s okay with you. Dimmock, right. Wilkes, left. I’ll go forward,” he said, using his senior position to give orders. In the end, being close to Jim had helped him to quickly climb through several positions in the army. His medical training had been taken into consideration, although after the hours of practice and his obvious discipline, Jim had moved enough strings so that his beloved pet would be able to ascend to captain. He didn’t have the same rank as Moran, who was a Colonel, but at least he was above many of the individuals with whom he worked with. And that made his life much easier.

While he went from coverage to coverage, trying to reach the other side without shooting or being shot at, John thought about Moriarty’s strange behaviour with him. His visits had practically remained regular. If they didn’t see each other once a month, it was at least because Moran was around. Everyone in Buckingham knew about the close relationship of his boss with Moran. And, that was one of the reasons why many of the soldiers and workers were treated harshly, they complained because of the special treatment that Sebastian received and which he, apparently, enjoyed greatly. It seemed that in that place full of crazy people, all of them were dogs that desperately needed a bone or a touch from their owner. And John really didn’t mind being recognized as someone who had to be avoided if you would want to stay out of trouble, which made part of the team to hold a grudge against him. Molly was one of the few people that he could trust.

In his days off, and those few that matched with those that Moran wasn’t on duty, John would ask permission to leave Buckingham and spend time with Molly in her apartment in the ‘clean’ side. There, they talked about almost everything that they discuss without fear of compromising the integrity of everything that they had built throughout the years. Molly had kissed him once, in her apartment. It was shortly after John had stopped going to the infirmary for her to attend to his wounds caused by Moriarty, the first time that he had stayed overnight in her guest room. They had been talking for most of the night, and Molly asked him how having a soul mate worked. Talking with her, John discovered for the first time the profound loneliness that plagued the hearts of the pure, the way that they themselves felt lost, like ships drifting in the vast ocean, without a port to where to anchor, traveling blindly.

After talking, Molly hugged him and kissed him. He didn’t stop her. The little contact that he had had was with Jim, and although a part of him wanted to separate brusquely, horrified, the other part knew that there was nothing wrong with a kiss. Molly wasn’t going to ask him more than that, and he knew. That is why he allowed himself to enjoy that kiss, even though it barely tasted, and somewhat bitter, it had nothing to do with Moriarty’s kisses. It was something intended completely to comfort, rather to cause pain. It was something designed to show affection, not domination. John responded to the kiss awkwardly, unsure how to do it.

“If you weren’t dystopian,” she said, after that, as she hugged him. “Perhaps we could consider the idea of being together.”

John smiled and stroked her hair, embracing the pathologist between his arms.

“If I weren’t dystopian,” he answered. “It would have been a honour, Molly Hooper.”

John wasn’t entirely sure if Moriarty knew about his visits to the pathologist (he was sure of it), or if he knew that John wasn't a loyal follower of his regime. He often had the feeling that Jim could take apart his soul and read him as if he were a simple newspaper clipping. He wondered if, despite everything, Jim was still suspicious of him. And when he always went out in a mission, and it was him who chose at least one of his teammates, it made him think that there was something fishy going on semi permanently.

Would Jim know of his double game? That he wasn’t as loyal to the regime as he wanted to make everyone believe?

Perhaps that was the reason why the leather collar was still in place around John’s neck.

The skin of the area had hardened, and Jim had sent someone to sew the leather collar to prevent him to take it out. In summer it was a real ordeal. The sweat made his hardened skin cut itself and made sores. Finally, after several visits to the infirmary to heal his wounds located in his jugular, Jim got him a new one. It would be placed through the head and had various levels of pressure. At least, John could loosen it to sleep better, in the intimacy of his bedroom. Even though Jim would many times tighten it up until he choked when he was called to the office. At that moment he realized that Jim didn’t do it for him, but for his own sick amusement. From that moment forwards, he understood that all of those presents that Jim gave him, all of those favours, all of those rewards, had another side that Watson could prevent beforehand. And although there could be a possibility that he wasn’t right, he was prepared for whatever might come. 

Moran had become, on the other side, a silent enemy, as it would have been a medieval knight: trying to replace him, get him away from the trophy, but maintaining a gallant attitude at all times and especially in public. Sebastian was an elegant, fierce, cunning being, and above all else he was lethal. John had thought that, to be willingly serving Jim, Moran had to be at least as crazy as he was, but nothing further away from reality. Moran was a survivor in the most absolute totality of the word. He had seen what was coming, and had managed to finish in the side where the largest amount of benefits would give him long term. And, of course, he was more than willing to pay the price that assumed his supposed freedom. A part of him enjoyed the situation, and anyone else that was within a meter and a half of the mercenary would know.

John suspected that Moran was even smarter that Jim. He was clever enough to be able to maintain himself under the shadow of the villain to not be taken into account. The operator number one in the shadow.

If there was something more dangerous than a tyrant that had lost his mind, it was an evil genius that was perfectly sane.

A part of him suspected that in the recent times, Moran had stopped seeing him as a potential threat, and that jealousy replaced it. John would place his hand on the fire because Sebastian knew that he had alternative plans in the deepest part of his being, where the blackened hand of Moriarty wasn’t able to reach, and he feared up to a certain point that John could make those a reality.

He felt the cold of a gun touch his neck.

“Drop the gun, and there might be a chance I won't blow your head up today.”

John tensed and did what had been instructed with, unwilling to die. The voice sounded awfully familiar, but he wouldn’t turn around with fear that they might misunderstand it as an aggressive gesture.

“I am a friend. I won’t shot. I surrender.”

He heard a curse behind him, and a hand closed around his head, making him slouch forward and run while ducking until he was thrown to the ground. He blinked, suddenly blind, until he could turn around. The man that was pointing towards his gun at him, was hovering over him and had its back against the light. It looked like a dark figure wrapped around the shadows. John squinted, raising a hand to cover the sun and contemplate the face of his captor with certain comfort. He could feel the rapid pulse of his heart, the adrenaline rushing through his system like a shot of cocaine, slowing time and strengthening his muscles. He started tweaking the screws in his mind until his thoughts became quick flashes, the movements and acts in pure reflexes of action. The unpleasant smell of blood and gunpowder became forgotten in a secondary plane in favour of the salty touch of his own sweat. He growled when he felt the smoke guns dig into his ribs and the handle of the _Karambit_ press against his spine.

“John? John Watson?”

* * *

 

“We're running out of time, Einstein. How’s it going?”

Sherlock turned around, with Hugin over his shoulder. Irene covered his back, firing her gun when one of Jim’s agents approached enough for them to be able to see what they were doing.

They were in a hole, on the stairs that entered the tunnels of the Metropolitan subway line. Amersham station had been a key of the attack, as it just reached one of the more critical points of the London wall.

“I’m doing what I can Irene. Give me five more minutes. I can’t control the network.” Answered Sherlock, with his fingers flying over the keys of the computer, trying to infiltrate the security system of the police communication. Eliminating the security cameras of the perimeter had been a mere child's play, however the communications of the enemy forces were another matter...

After convincing the senior members of the Resistance that they had a plan to end with the government, Greg Lestrade, a certain Bradstreet, the very Irene Adler and Mary Morstan, and an ex agent of Jim that deserted him two years after the regime ended, who got terribly interested on his job and would collaborate with nearly anything that he would do. Sherlock, who had acquired an apartment in the clean zone of the city after finding out that his soulmate was in Buckingham, would send anonymous letters through Hugin to the secret bases of the resistance in the ‘Lion’s Den’ with hopes that one of those would eventually make an impression on the allied forces, giving him the material and support that he would need to bring his plan into action.

While he was taking refuge in the relative security of 221B on Baker Street, under the vigilance and care of Mrs. Hudson (an old dystopian that was condemned to forced labour by the man who forced her to marry after she killed her previous husband, and who Sherlock saved in one of his escapades in search for food and other equipment in the clean side), tracing his plans full of vengeance and high treason, the Tetrad that controlled the movement of the rebels in the London subsoil received letter after letter of his advances and progresses, promising that, as soon he got their seal of approval, he would present himself there with the project in hand.

When he presented himself to them, after twenty-three letters without answers, the four commanders were completely astonished by his youth.

“We can't agree to the plan of a deranged child” pointed Bradstreet, an old man, of wide shoulders and a sullen face. “I’m not willing to lose years of works because an enlightened man who claims to be...”

“You lost your family in the first two years. You had never wielded a weapon until after shortly finishing puberty” began Sherlock, knowing that the only way that they could take him seriously was to scare them a little. The four of them stopped to listen, and Bradstreet's face turned white. “I calculate by your age that you were married, because of that and by the revealing mark in your fingers. Plus, you still have the ring, hanging from a chain next to your dog tags inside your shirt. She died alongside with your son. You carry their picture in your pocket. It's smudged, so I assume that you constantly take it out often to look at it. By the discoloration of the pigments I would say it was taken years ago. You served in Yard, judging by your formation. You walk upright, and you have calluses in the hands, of someone who is used to holding a weapon, although not the right one. You still hold the rifle as if it were a reglementary revolver, so there were years of service with the law enforcement. You deserted from them as soon as you understood where everything was going to end, although not fast enough so that Jim would wouldn't notice of your plans and send someone to have your family killed in retaliation. And, like everyone else here, you wish to send him personally to hell. Although, one doesn't need to be a genius to be able to see this”.

He looked at all of them again. Lestrade appeared impressed, Bradstreet was livid, and the two women observed him with an evaluative look that made him curious. In Mary he found someone brilliant and aggressive, ready for anything. In Adler, a brilliant and calculating mind, cold and beautiful as a icicle. "I could go on with any of you, and I don't even know your names. _Yes_ , I am capable of doing all of this, and believe me when I tell you that I know the way to end with Moriarty’s empire. The only thing I need is collaboration and resources."

After that, the collaboration between both parts became much closer. The letters were answered, and the information swiftly and safely in the hands of Hugin, who dedicated himself in going across the routes that connected both points, preferably at night, carrying the messages with him.

Because of security reasons, none of them regularly left the territory that they operated in. Even if it was only to avoid the stares and the indiscreet mouths that could send to hell all the effort, blood and hard work that had brought them there. Sherlock spent his sleepless nights trying to decipher the formula that would allow them to blow up into pieces the walls. He was trying to synthesize a poison, a virus, something simple to carry and place on the target, and were less destructive than a bomb.

He had been trying for a few days to synthesize a poison from mercury and tetrodotoxin obtained from the fugu fish. The easiest would be simply to grab some drugs and somehow manage to put on an overdose, but that would require the approach to be too close, therefore dangerous. It seemed so that the poison was the most practical way out. Simply, he would have to pour it in his drink, place it in his meal or sprinkle it on the ventilation of his room, and problem solved.

The difficulty was in the complication of synthesizing something so complex, although he was very close. The tests that he had begun to do with the rats were giving satisfactory results, but knowing how it was going to react with humans was a bit trickier. Sherlock was willing to try it on any hostage that they could get. At this point in the match, he had lost all trace of compassion that would ever remain.

Hugin shrieked, sinking his claws on his shoulder, making himself more tangible that he had ever been. Sherlock hissed, and finally got access to the control system. The communications from the police and military were intercepted by the system, and the program began to work, fluid and uninterrupted. Sherlock closed the laptop and placed it in his bag.

“Ready. Get me out of here. This is going to explode at any moment”.

The explosions kept ringing, more and more distant. That piece of wall had been programmed to be the last to explode, the last in being knocked down, even though it only gave them a small margin of action. With the communications intercepted, they could now know exactly where and when their enemy was, just by accessing the program’s database. The Trojan had been developed with some computer experts that had worked for the MI6, specializes in all types of firewalls and barriers of the virtual world. They might not be the best, but it was more than what they had had at the beginning. And that Mycroft had stolen the access codes had made the project more accessible.

Irene made him crouch down and escorted him quickly to the point where Lestrade was. Halfway through, he received a warning in his communicator, and they stopped a few meters from the meeting point. Irene leaned in to look at the panorama. He could hear Lestrade talking with someone under the crossfire, and Sherlock’s raven seemed more nervous than usual, flapping his wings as if he wanted to fly away but something seemed to prevent him from doing so.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked when he saw the black tip of the rifle sticking out from the cover where Lestrade was hiding.

“One of the loads has been maladjusted. I need to go and repair it.”

Sherlock cursed. There was always a problem. _Always._

He sighed. He knew that he would not come out from it alive. He had almost expected it. He took a deep breath. Irene took him by the arm tightly. Her face, pale as marble, was covered in dust and dirt. Her gathered hair made her features much more angular than usual. Her green eyes pierced him with fury, and the lioness that accompanied her was wagging her tail with a lack of urgency, roaring under her breath. Sherlock could see the tail of Lestrade’s badger looming behind the cover where he was. The conversation reached his ears, angrily. He looked at Irene directly at her eyes, aware that time was playing against them. All of the charges had to detonate, and the more time that they lost here, the more likely they would be trapped under the debris of the area that they were in.

“You’re not going to move from here. We will send someone else.”

Sherlock put away the communicator and pulled his pistol from his belt, shaking Irene’s hand off.

“I have to go. I left instructions on 221B on how to manage the  _ Chimera _ if something happens to me. My landlady has them.” He explained quickly, inspecting the ammunition of his weapon, and that the hand grenades were accessible from where they were, hanging from the holsters on his hips. “Let no one touch it directly or inhale it. It’s terribly toxic. Use the gloves and mask at the entrance to access the laboratory,” Sherlock swallowed, and pulled an envelope from his jacket. He handed it to Irene, who took it firmly before putting it in her chest. “This is for my... If you see my wolf, give them this from my part. I hope... that they understand.”

_Hugin_ screamed at him as he did so, and rose violently, heading for the cover where Lestrade was, circling in the air.

“ _Hugin_!” Sherlock screamed, and was about to head there and follow him, when a shot stopped him. He returned to the cover and after several deep breaths, he ran in the opposite direction, towards the area of the wall that had not yet been detonated. He jumped through the rubble, hurrying towards an abandoned vehicle, intending to bypass it and drive him towards the area in question. He had less than two minutes before the last charge exploded, and, therefore, the covers would explode.

The co-pilot’s door opened while he was trying to get the wires to connect.

“Damn it, Holmes. I will not let you get killed after all the effort I’ve done to keep you alive,” snarled Irene, pulling up beside him and firing from the window at the two army soldiers that were approaching them. “Start this damned thing before they leave us as a walking sieve.”

Sherlock gritted his teeth until he got the wires to make contact. The motor trembled and turned on with a roar. With both hands on the wheel, Sherlock stepped on the accelerator and turned around the car until it was right in front of their pursuers. He charged against them with force, and then backtracked to line up on the street to their destination.

“Put your seatbelt on. I’m going to skip a couple of traffic lights”, he warned.

After flying through nearly all of the lights that were to cross London, they finally reached their destination. The area of the wall where the charges had failed.

“Good thing that they were only going to be a couple”.

They got out of the car and Sherlock ran directly to the place where the terminal that controlled the detonation of the gunpowder that would make the Semtex explode was. And as he feared, it had been damaged and had to be activated manually, which would give them less than a minute to get out of the danger zone before everything flew to pieces. The minimum safety distance couldn’t be met with so little margin time, no matter the possibilities.

“What do I do? What do you need?”

Sherlock took out of his backpack a pen drive with the codes and inserted it in the entrance of the portable terminal, hoping that with a restart it would be enough to reconnect the explosives with the correct sequence.

“Stay in the car and keep the motor running. When I activate the detonator we will have to leave this place at top speed.”

Irene disappeared at a trot, and Sherlock heard the engine being turned on again. There were fire trucks helping the nearby areas and if his city plans did not fail him, he knew he had minimum two minutes to fix that charge before the next explosion caught him too close. He waited for the charging bar of the terminal system to completely fill, carefully watching his wristwatch, programmed to countdown alongside the system of the last detonation. He had less than six minutes left. The would have to access the ‘ _Lion Den_ ’ in a different way. Because Sherlock had no longer any plans to return to the clean side after the completion of the final plan, unless he had to collect samples. He hoped that Lestrade would be able to get him a subject whom he could use a pilot test before the final assault.

Sherlock thought about  _Hugin_ and his uncontrolled reaction. He felt the oppression in his chest that was characteristic of the distance, but it was diminishing, as if finally the raven had decided that it was useless to try and make Sherlock listen, and would have yielded in order to return with his owner to prevent further damages. His heart was accelerating, and he felt a ball in his stomach, heavy and uncomfortable. He wished that the day was finally over, more than ever, and an annoying part of him firmly believed that he was going to die that day. It was the first time that he was face to face with death in that sense. He had never before been in a combat zone, although he had fired a gun before, and definitely knew how to use a grenade. It would not be the first time either that he killed someone, or that he saw someone die. Simply it was the tension and imminence in the air, the atmosphere of danger and chaos that his plan had unleashed.

Of course that the plan itself wasn’t very tactical, it had been to test the waters they where into.

To have the wall of London fall would serve to promote the escape of many of the dystopians that preferred to begin a new life away of London and with all that it involved, with less possibilities of suffering from reprisals of the government or Jim. But it was also an opportunity for the allied forces that were willing to help them in their cause.

However, the only thing that Sherlock had in mind when drawing up that plan had been to know the enemy a bit better. Undoubtedly Moriarty’s activities and responses over the years had been more that revealing, but he could not help but see him as a complex matrioska. He seemed unable to predict Jim’s movements accurately, despite thinking that he knew his way of thinking. To believe that he could get himself into his shoes, get into his head. He couldn’t. Every time that he was able to pull a layer of what James Moriarty represented, he would discover that there was another layer and another one. And Sherlock knew that the easiest option to discover how many layers he had was not to pull one by one, but to cut him in half and observe the veins. So Sherlock had done that in a very figuratively sense. He had destroyed perhaps one of the few things upon which Moriarty had had almost complete control since the dictatorship began, and he longed to know his reaction.  

Why was it important to know how Jim thought? Because that would help them destroy him, frankly. There was also a small part of frank curiosity, but what would put him to sleep soundly every night when the fatigue was too much for his exhausted body, was dreaming with Moriarty’s grave. He would dream of his corpse, with blood running down his temple. He would dream with the day that the _‘Lion Den’_ would become a habitable place again, not the landfill of human waste that it had become. He would dream of the day when Moriarty was only a bad name, an old memory that he could forget over time.

Sherlock had reached the cold and inhospitable place where the vengeance was what made his heart beat every day with a little more force.

When the white bar was fully filled, and the familiar beep of the activation sounded, Sherlock extracted the pen drive and ran towards the car, jumping on to his seat.

“Where can we go in two minutes?” asked Irene, driving towards the front, stepping on the accelerator firmly.

“To... _Elm Park_ at most. From there we can follow the _District_ line until we reach _Circle_ , and then cross under _Tower Bridge_ to the _‘Lion Den’_. _Circle_ hasn’t given us any problems. It will be barely monitored".

The explosion was heard shortly after, and the car shook as the ground trembled. Sherlock felt the icy kiss of death on the back of his neck, as he felt her brush against him. He had escaped this time, but seemed to promise a second encounter.  _ Soon, very soon _ ... He shuddered, removing that thought from his mind.

They turned by one of the streets, and left the car parked in front of one of the tube station entrances that faced _Circle_ and seemed to lack people.

They ran until they reached one of the corridors, where they accessed the ventilation tunnels. There were safer forms of crossing the tube system, but there were zones where the security guards passed more often than there, so that seemed a great choice.

They walked in silence, side by side, until they reached the barricade that separated the tube tunnels from the area of the _‘Lion Den’_. Sherlock was about to say something, when a flash of pain pierced his shoulder. He raised a hand to the area where sting was going through, and gasped, breathless, with his eyes filling with tears. He couldn’t move. He could barely breathe. What was that? He looked at his hand, confused. There was no blood. He wasn’t wounded. He couldn’t understand how his neurons could register a pain that wasn’t supposed to be there. But even if he didn't understand it, he still could not move.

“Well, it seems that it hasn’t been that hard, huh?” smiled Irene, hanging her rifle over her shoulder and the flashlight on. When Sherlock didn’t answer, she turned, worried. “Holmes?”

The white, cool light of the LEDs illuminated him, in the darkness of the tunnel. Irene’s lioness slowly approached Sherlock, rubbing her head against his side, but Sherlock still did not react. The pain was piercing, as if something was going through his own flesh. He found it hard to breath, and thinking was impossible. His legs began to tremble and he fell to his knees. Everything went blank in his head.

“Irene... I can't...”

The aforesaid carried him over her shoulder, ready to drag him all the way if it was necessary. She knew that kind of pain. She knew that Sherlock did not have a physical wound that would cause him such a reaction and that also it wasn't the mere separation from his spirit. Something had happened to his other half, she was sure. But she wasn't going to tell him unless he was capable of reaching to that conclusion by himself. She was not going to hurt him there, where he couldn't fall apart at ease. If it was what she thought it was, he would need support, and as he was, he would also need solace. But Irene could be wrong, of course. And she nearly prayed for it. Those reactions could also be due only of the soul mate being hurt.

She did not need to put two and two together to realize that probably the other part of Sherlock had been within a few meters of them, when _Hugin_ flew of the boy's shoulder until the barricade where Lestrade was. She hoped that, if that was so, that they had gotten rid of the explosion. How was it possible to not have seen a wolf? It must be huge and showy. She could not understand how, in the midst of a battle and with the senses in alert, something as big could have passed through her.

“Calm down. I'll bring you to the camp,” she grunted, as she began to pace along the cleared tube tracks towards the surface. She pulled out her communicator with the other hand and dialled Lestrade’s number. “Greg. Have someone pick us up at _Surrey Quays_. We're fine, the charges have detonated, but something has happened to Sherlock’s dystopic. See you at the shelter".

* * *

 

Greg was carrying the stretcher where John was resting, bleeding profusely from the left shoulder. Him and another of his men had dragged him into the tube tunnels when the wall exploded. John had inadvertently stepped between Lestrade and a bullet while he was trying to go back to their ranks, and they had hit him in the shoulder. With all the possible care, and the protection from the smoke of the debris produced by the explosion, Lestrade took out his knife and cut off the piece of John's ear that had the chip so that they could bring him to the _Lion Den_ without danger, the same that as they did with the other soldier that they took prisoner for Sherlock’s tests. The raven had stayed rested on Lestrade’s shoulder, with it's dark eyes fixed on John, convalescent and half unconscious while he was being transported. Greg’s yew was hurrying on his side, checking the holes and dark corners in case someone hid there.

The way back wasn't more bumpy than usual, but it was faster. As soon as they reached the tunnels, they left John in charge of the few doctors that they had, prepared to attend the wounded after the mission. He watched as they applied gauze to the ear, cleaning the wound with alcohol, and how they performed an emergency operation to close the wound, although he was assigned to the small hospital that the _Lion Den_  owned, and that wasn't totally controlled by the government. There he would receive the necessary blood transfusions to save his life.

He was on the way to the medical centre when he received Irene's call, so he arranged for him to receive a transport to the hospital.

The last thing that Lestrade had expected to find in the middle of the mission had been John Watson. The last time that he saw him, he had been preparing an attack for one of the tube networks as a distraction, and that was years ago, when he was barely an adult. Now he even had a beard, and his body had adapted well to the life of a soldier. However, when he saw the leather collar around his neck, he quickly looked away. He was afraid of cutting it for what might happen latter; even if it was something he wanted. That was something John would have to decide for himself. And he doubted he would want to talk about the years with Jim when he came back.

He had passed information to them, of course. But they had never known his name. He was just another informant. An infiltrated that they had and who seemed committed to the cause one hundred per cent. They couldn’t give their names in fear of the notes being intercepted, but a part of him felt guilty of not knowing about it from the beginning. Only John would be so crazy to take advantage of his captivity in his favour.

Greg thought, when he saw him in uniform, that he was hallucinating. That his tired mind was playing tricks on him.

Seeing him next to Dimmock, he believed that they had lost him forever. That he had finally succumbed to whatever they were doing to the dystopians of the other side. Lestrade preferred not to think too much of the rumours circulating about it.

The _Stockholm syndrome_ had already claimed many of his own so most of them after a year passed were considered lost. John would have to pass through recognition and an exam before he began to join part of the resistance again. They couldn’t leave any loose ends now that they were already so close in ending everything for once and for all.

All the same, Irene’s phrase through the communicator was still resting in his head, while he looked at John and Sherlock’s raven perched on his shoulder in an alternate fashion.

_ “Something has happened to Sherlock’s dystopian.” _

Who was Sherlock’s dystopian?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation of the original A/N:
> 
> Don’t kill me, I promise to have a re-encounter in the next chapter. From here on everything improves, I swear it on Johnlock.
> 
> I already have a plan for Mystrade. Maybe you like the process, maybe you don’t. But the ending will be good, seriously.
> 
> Sorry for having gone so slow with this. I had three versions of the chapter and none of them seemed good to me. XD
> 
> See you in the next chapter! Thanks for not killing me!
> 
> MH
> 
> PS: Did anyone get the joke on the chapter’s name? XD It just happened, I swear.
> 
>  
> 
> Translators A/N:
> 
> I’m really sorry, m(_ _)m, I didn’t have the time to just go through the translation. However, I will persist in finding my muse, who she will help me in giving you these lovely chapters.
> 
>  
> 
> A new chapter will come very soon! 2 weeks max!!!
> 
>  
> 
> Author A/N:
> 
> Send love to her, she's lovely and she's doing an amazing job translating this. I can't thank her enough.  
> Thank you, dear readers, for exploring this story, taking your time. Dropping comments or hitting the kudos button. You rock.
> 
> See you soon!


	4. Marking objectives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:  
> Ahem...........  
> I promised to be good.  
> And now I have to look after my children. :3  
> Yep. It doesn’t end here. There is still a lot to do XD  
> Sorry for the slowness

If there was something that he hated more than he could bear, was the hospital smell. It seemed so paradoxical that he himself had worked as a kind of doctor in a time that already seemed too remote. The aseptic aroma, the acid of the disinfectant and the latex were asphyxiating. There was also a smell of plastic. And the air that entered his lungs was too pure. Clean. Even cold. Oxygen.

He was being intubated.

He felt somewhat sleepy, his body heavy. It was difficult for him to find out exactly where in space were his legs, let alone the feet.

With the first-hand experience that he had (more than enough), he could almost swear that he was under the effect of morphine. He opened an eye heavily, only to find himself with a white sheet covering him and an IV drip attached to his hand. There was a constant beeping sounding somewhere in the space that he was in. Good. Despite being half-groggy, he was still capable of thinking with some coherence.

He activated his senses all that he was capable of. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated in what he could perceive, cataloguing it in a way that made sense. Definitively, he was in a hospital. The beeping was rhythmic, steady. It had accelerated for a few moments, and then the beat began to slow down. Which this meant, in this case, was: hospital. Definitively.

Which hospital? He had not the slightest idea. _The Royal_  was too far away from Buckingham, and he didn't remember having received any beating worthy of a transfer to Bart’s. _Charing Cross_ , _Wellington_ , _Chelsea_ and _Westminster_... he had been in all of them and he knew that he hadn't entered them recently, and much less in the last hours.

And definitively in _London Bridge_ and in _King's College_ much less.

Something warm touched his fingers, so familiar that he didn't have to think what it was.

In his sleep, it seemed something completely logical. When he talked, the oxygen mask that he was wearing fogged up.

“ _Garm_...”

A lightweight, comforting, settled on top of him, and he felt the familiar shape of his wolf’s head resting on top of his chest. He moved a hand, feeling it heavy and half dead, until it rested on _Garm_ ’s head, gently passing it downwards. He felt his wolf’s ears low, and heard the soft pitiful sounds that he uttered. He noticed that his snout was resting on a tight spot on his body. He tried to sit up and a flash of pain pierced him and brought him back abruptly in place.

The beeping accelerated when that occurred and he turned his head, enough to see a nurse approaching his room. When she entered, he could see her card from the _London Bridge Hospital_. Was he in the ‘ _Lion Den_ ’? How did he get over there? Why was he looked after here instead of Bart’s?

“Molly...”

The nurse passed by without answering, and stood in front of the machines, reading his vital signs, writing down the results in a clipboard. He swore he saw copper hair tied up in high ponytail. He repeated the name, and felt the warmth of his wolf leave him when she approached him to change the IV drip.

“Mr. Watson, do you feel dizzy? How long have you been awake?”

John wanted to answer, but he had no sense of time at that moment. His eyes were closing, and he struggles to keep them open.

The first coherent impression that came up to his mind was that he was not on the pure side. Somehow he had ended admitted at the hospital of the ‘ _Lion Den_ ’ and Molly wasn’t there. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the morphine. It didn’t matter how much he fought with it, he was never going to be able to fight against the drug. He tried to remember how he had gotten here, what was the last thing he remembered. The last thing he had been doing. He remembered having his rifle in his hand, and heard shots...

“Don’t move, please. The wound on your shoulder is still closing.”

Wound? No doubt that would explain the morphine, but it did not explain everything else.

The clear memory of a black raven filled his mind. It was as if he was looking at it, in front of him, piercing him with its black eyes...

He realized he was falling asleep again, when he stopped listening to the rhythm of his own heartbeat ticking on the monitors, but there was little that he could do to avoid the drowsiness. He slipped slowly into the haze of sleep and, as he fell into the void, into the absolute nothingness, he remembered the last thing he had done: he stood in the way between a member of the resistance and friendly fire.

Whatever happened to him now, if he went back to Buckingham, Jim would kill him.

* * *

 

Irene had dragged Sherlock half ‘ _Lion Den_ ’ up through the surface, when the transport that Lestrade authorized arrived. It was no more than an ambulance. If you canted a car with gasoline, that was in good conditions of use, in the _‘Lion Den_ ’, then you had to have one of the medical vans. Fortunately, the workers in the only two functional hospitals on that side of London were also dystopic, so collaboration was often helpful and close.

“Hold on, Holmes. Just a bit more...”

Sherlock had collapsed somewhere along the road in the ambulance, writhing and choking out a scream. Irene tried to hold him to keep him still.

Sherlock couldn’t do it.

A few minutes after getting into the ambulance, while he was talking with Adler to try and stay distracted, he felt a searing pain that pierced right through him. He began to feel dizzy, losing his breath and he felt himself fall, even though he was sitting down. He reached out and clung tightly to Irene, seeing stars blinking behind his eyes. He placed his other hand to his chest.

“Holmes?”

Sherlock was gasping, his lungs oppressed. He couldn’t breathe. His eyes began to sting, and tears began to fall. He could feel as if he had a rope that died in him, in tension, the other end fixed somewhere else. The inexplicable sensation of being bound to something or someone with an overwhelming intensity that had always kept him sane and alive, it started to unravel until it was hardly a thin strand, without any kind of support. He wanted to fight so that the fragment inside of him did not break, he begged for it.

He briefly felt as his body fell until it stayed resting next to Irene, and then how her arms went around him, assuring him, free from the seat belt. He could hear her voice in the distance as he felt his world sink. Everything suddenly spinning around him.

“I’m losing him... I’m losing him, I’m losing him...”

Irene had lost her soulmate seven years ago. She havent been able to find them in time, so she never knew how they were or what their name was. It was a butterfly, she knew that. Beyond that, she never knew any other information. And she was nearly glad of it. The loss was a well-known and quite painful process for the dystopic that was left alive. Once, she had met someone who had told her that their souls were connected by the thread of destiny, and when one side died, the thread wasn’t cut, but it extended to the afterlife. But the surviving half felt it broken, and the sensation was of being torn apart from the inside. Irene had felt it. She had woken up in the middle of the night with no air to breathe, and a few minutes later, she fainted. When she woke up, a while later, she felt alone. So terribly abandoned... And her lioness, _Kuma_ , was lying besides her, staring her with sad eyes and her tail hanging low.

The pure ones seemed to believe that after the death of one of the dystopics, the spiritual creatures would abandon them. But it was not like that. Being intimately connected with their human, the avatars reflected their state and reacted to it. In the beginning it had been believed that these manifestations came from some kind of chemical anomaly, but they were help. A compass. It was a way to find your other half. So it could be said that the existence of the dystopic avatars was purely technical. Once the couple met, they disappeared. It was not known what happened to them once the meeting was established. And while the animal of the deceased disappeared completely, the one of the survivor was tied to its carrier, linked to life, continuing with a search that would never have an end.

So there were many dystopics with an avatar that had lost their other half. And that, lately, was not surprising.

So she knew exactly what Sherlock was going through. And she had hoped, sincerely, that he would not have to go through it.

She had learned from Sherlock himself that his dystopic was in Buckingham, and he in turn learned it from Mike Stanford himself. She had tried to reason with him, to try and push him away from the expectation of meeting his other half and planting his feet on the ground, before it was too late for him to face reality. She had escaped from Buckingham. She knew what was like being brewed there. She had been in Jim’s service for a long time, working on incognito missions for him until, after the death of his dystopic, she decided that as she had nothing to lose, she would risk it. Jim’s dog and Moran nearly caught her before she escaped through the tunnels of the tube and found the Resistance.

She knew for a fact that good faith was for the children.

But Sherlock had not listened to her. She had seen in his eyes the flame of passion, the fierce fire of determination and she could not help but feel overwhelmed by the power distilled in those shining oceans. To face an ancient god in his deepest grace would have resulted less terrible than being pierced by that pair of stars.

So she held him fiercely and covered him up, holding his head, knowing what was coming, trying to give him all her support.

She looked up to give him privacy when she noticed that her shoulder was humid. If there was something that she had learned about Sherlock, was that despite the calamities that they were surrounded in he was a proud being. He was someone who hated being the target of the pity of others. So she gave him time and space, without letting go his body, trembling because of the spasms. She thought about calling Greg to inform him about the matter.

Sherlock, on the other hand, began to lose his breath, immersed in his own spiral until, he learned later, he lost consciousness in Irene's arms. 

And for a moment, he wished he could have not gotten it back.

* * *

 

_The wolf kept pushing, trying to free himself of the chain that was pulling him towards the darkness. He cried the same way he had heard him already once, that first night that he saw him chained to the stone throne. Sherlock felt the air pushing him, swaying him around in the air while he was trying to flap towards him. He had to free him so that he could run, away from the well that he was about to fall in, dragged by his bonds. The hurricane that was blowing in the forest was strong, too strong for his hollow bones and his soft black feathers. However, his determination was strong as well, and he continued to fly. It seemed that with every flutter he was farther away from his objective, so in the frantic race for the salvation, Sherlock saw the answer._

_And his answer had the shape of a pinecone. A pinecone that swayed, hanging from the bare branch of one of the trees, which the current was directed towards._

_Sherlock had always detested the ground. The limitations of the surface. The lack of flexibility, of visibility. The blindness of the horizon._

_But, at that moment, he needed to be on the ground._

_He had to fall._

_He let himself be carried by the current and when he arrived at the pine cone, he extended his claws and clung to it. Then he folded his wings and with a jerk to pull it off, he let himself be dragged down._

_Gaining an extra weight was the only way to plummet, being as lightweight as he was. And there it was, spinning in the air while gravity was doing its work. He waited, closing his eyes. He didn’t want to see the fall. Falling was his biggest nightmare, his dark secret. His strongest and more sincere fear, hidden behind layers of lies and pride. To fall by losing his wings, becoming vulgar by losing his brain. To fall by losing his heart, to die for losing his reason to live._

Keep your eyes on the prize.

_The thought pierced his brain like an electric shock and making him open them, fixing them on the wolf, which had sunk his paws on the ground, trying to stop the advance of his body pulled by the chain. He was so close to the ditch... A few minutes later he felt himself free of the air current that made him go downhill, and he let go of the pinecone just in time for him to open his wings and glide at ground level. He maintained his flight at a low level, avoiding the currents. Looking around, he studied his surroundings as he landed by the wolf that looked at him pleadingly, still pulling the chain._

_Sherlock met his gaze. There was a slight chance that this could or could not work, but they had to do it together._

Let go. Let go. Trust me. Don't fight. Use it in your favour.

_The wolf looked at him, as if he had understood his thoughts and ducked his head, waiting. The raven fluttered it wings and flew towards one of old unstable pine trees. He flew in circles around the trunk and the wolf barked. He rapidly approached the tree, running in circles and winding the chain around the tree. A moment later, a crunch of the tree trunk was heard, breaking under the chain’s force._

_Sherlock perched himself on the wolf’s lower back, waiting, pecking at the shackle on the neck. He could hear how the old wood began to break under the pressure that the chain exerted. Slowly, the first bolt jumped out, the wolf kept himself still, waiting and beginning to whine when he realized that maybe there was not enough time for him to be free before the tree split in half and crushed them._

_Sherlock didn't pay him any attention, concentrating on his job. Another bolt out and he would be free. A single bolt and..._

_The tree crunched and split apart with a roar, beginning to fall._

_The chain, with the resistance of the previous pull in it, tensed itself and whipped out, running towards the ditch._

_The last bolt came loose and the shackle fell from the wolf’s neck just in time for the pull of the chain._

_Sherlock croaked and began to fly, with the hair of the wolf’s lower back grabbed around his claws, pulling at him away of the falling tree. The wolf ran after him, escaping._

_When it fell, crashing to the ground with a great noise and raising a cloud of dust, the wolf wagged it's tail while the crow, on his lower back, observed with his head cocked, as if he didn't recognise his own work at all._

* * *

 

He had already spent hours attending Lestrade’s psychological tests, when John was finally allowed to talk to him without having a doctor measuring his emotional answers based on his heart beat and his physical reactions to the question. He had to admit that he had become a very good liar after all those years he had served Jim. He had only lied twice when the questions became a bit too private. And they were not even lies, just ambiguous answers. There were things that people didn’t have to know.

Only when the doctor left, and Greg sat down on a chair to chat with him, he remembered his leather collar, still around his neck. He had become used to it, over time, wearing it to the point that it was a part of him. Since he did not take it off, not even when he was sleeping, in fear that anyone would come and see him without it, he began to sleep in certain postures that accommodated his head in such a way that his skin had a minimum contact with the collar. The first time he had tried to sleep in one of the old postures, he didn’t only fail to fall asleep, he also experienced pain in his muscles.

Greg saw as he raised his hand to the collar, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. One didn't need to have a doctorate to know what that meant, let alone knowing where John came from.

“We didn't take it off you... We didn't exactly know what you wanted to do...” he cleared his throat, uncomfortable. The questions that they had John answer were the rigorous ones; nothing had been out of the ordinary. But a few of the questions had simply been too... intimate, and hearing their answers was somewhat uncomfortable, as John was a friend of his and not a stranger.

John was dying to get that thing out, knowing it was a mark. An alarm sign that screamed from where he came and what happened to him. He knew that the marks on his own skin would be visible after taking the collar out, but it was easier to conceal a couple of wounds, than a strip of leather surrounding his neck. Although he still had to get used to the sensation of being able to do things without it. In recent times, its absence had been related in his head as mortal danger, so he preferred to wear it a while longer. He was in no hurry of taking it off. He wondered the face that Jim would make when he would see his pet shoot him between the eyes. For a moment he wanted to keep the collar, only so that he could throw it at his face when he confronted him.

Uncomfortable with the question, nearly as much as Lestrade, he decided that changing the subject was more than a welcoming opportunity for both of them so he asked Greg how he had arrived to the hospital.

The former Detective explained to him that one of his own had tried to shoot him while he returned to his side of the battle, and that John placed himself in the middle. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, piercing him, and seeing that he was losing so much blood, they decided that it was best for him to be out of there. They thought that they would be able to get to the other hospital, farther from the border, but he had a cardiac arrest in the ambulance and while they were trying to bring him back, they decided that they could not wait and take him to the other side of the ‘Lion’s Den’ if they wanted him alive. And him having a heart attack explained why his wolf was here with him, and not trapped in Buckingham. Perhaps the few minutes that his clinical death lasted were enough for him to fade and disappear from the electric trap.

John touched his cut ear, where the locator chip had been. It had been wrapped up in gauze to prevent the bleeding and favour the disinfection of the wound and the scarring. He now understood the sedation and the pain in his shoulder.

He remembered his stupid face when he saw the silhouette of the crow flying in circles over them, standing out in the ground when he found himself with Lestrade after the gathering, while they were talking. Because he looked up as if he had gone mad and Greg looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

“So, all of that... the demolition of the wall... it was all from your chemist?” He asked curiously. “I’ve been told that he’s a brilliant lad.”

Greg laughed.

“Well, he’s special in his own way, but yes, he’s a genius. And yes, the idea was his. He said that it would be a good first step to test Moriarty. See how he would react in the end. But he has something big to end with him. He seems terribly enthusiastic about it. And he is not as young as they say” he explained. “So, how did you do it? How did you manage to hold so long?”

John cleared his throat, forgetting the laughter from a few minutes ago. His face hurt, and it had only been a few minutes of smiles, he was so unaccustomed to it.

“Actually, I had help... At least in the beginning. Do you know Mycroft Holmes?”

Oh, yeah. In all those years he had not forgotten the face, much less the name. How could anyone forget one as pompous as him?

Greg smiled, as if enjoying a private joke.

“Oh yeah. I know him. Did he help you out?”

Greg’s badger leapt over him, a warm presence on his stomach. He had no idea where Garm was, but he felt that he wasn’t far away. He laughed, but the laughter made his ribs hurt. He coughed and stopped, grimacing. Maybe it would be better if he was not that happy for a while.

“He caught me, in fact. But he was following orders, like everyone else”, John explained, caressing the avatar’s warm ethereal coat. He saw Lestrade frown, but he went on. “Let’s say that he advised me not to do a number of things, and I systematically ignored him as much as my body could hold. As soon as I started doing what he told me, I began to survive. But still, Buckingham is the worst place... the most awful place that can exist right now.”

John shuddered for a moment. He had allowed himself some humanity since he had woken in the hospital, knowing he was safer there than anywhere else in the world, and discovered that he felt strange among so many people. It seemed that after so much time outside of the ordinary life, he had lost all of the practice or custom that he could have with respect to the social relations in general, and the human contact. 

He still felt a little uncomfortable with the presence of large, friendly-looking crowds. He had a bit of the feeling of a cornered animal, ready to bite. Only that a part of him knew that he should not.

He swallowed, ready to continue, when he saw _Garm_ returning down the hall, with a happy trot that he had not seen in years. He arched his eyebrows when he saw him appear, until he saw the ends of a long coat after him, whipping the legs of the one that was following after him in a hurry. He swallowed again when Greg’s badger left his lap quickly, at the same time that a black crow entered his room cawing, flying a few laps around in the air. John’s heart accelerated as he directed his gaze towards the planning bird, tracing perfect parabolas over him, before perching on the shoulder of a tall, thin, pale-skinned man. He could not have been more than thirty years old. He was certainly younger than him, or so it seemed. His thin lips were open, and his clear eyes were staring at him from the hospital’s door.

Greg, stunned by the spectacle, tried to get up from his chair to allow the couple some privacy. Suddenly, Irene’s message made sense. Sherlock had felt John’s clinical death as his own, and that was why Adler had called him. Probably Sherlock had experienced the pain of the loss. For a moment, he felt a strong sympathy for the lad. It wasn’t an easy process to go through. Those who were part of the Resistance knew. When Mycroft found out, he was not going to be very happy. 

But seeing both of them, staring at each other like that, as if they had found a new element, or a new species, it was so overwhelming... Soldier and chemist studied each other as if they were the gravitational centre of each other.

Somehow, they where.

He remained static, trying to go unnoticed while he listened to increasingly fast beeps of the machine that monitored John’s heart. John himself didn’t think he could be more nervous. He felt his mouth dry, his hands trembling, and he felt somewhat dizzy. He needed to blink several times in order to check that his vision was not fooling him, and even then, he was still nervous. It was a type of embarrassment, like the first time that Molly had treated him in the infirmary from the wounds that Moriarty had done to him, but intensified, multiplied by twenty thousand million times. Molly had been a stranger. Someone who was secondary and only a passenger to him, relevant in a relative way. If what his head told him at that moment was not wrong, the one in front was his vital complement. The fragment that would make him a whole.

He blinked and gasped, not quite sure what to say, while the crow squawked and planned until it rested on the golden fur of the wolf. He could feel the tears gathering in his eyes, burning him, as his throat closed. He lifted a hand to the leather collar that was still wrapped around his neck, broken, embarrassed. Knowing that it would kill him in the inside. Knowing that now would come the moment that he had always feared. Now his soulmate would look at him with those eyes of an impossible colour, and there would be disgust in them.

But there was no disgust in Sherlock’s eyes, but a deep devotion. Everything that had maintained him alive, everything that he had fought for, all of that which made him give absolutely everything of himself. A sensation of triumph and mental peace filled him when he realized that, if it hadn’t been for the demolition of the wall, neither of them would probably be there at the moment. They wouldn’t be looking at each other. Probably the man in front of him would still be held prisoner in Buckingham, and he would remain locked in his lab, working with the _Chimera_.

Suddenly, the drugs that he had once consumed seemed to make him dirty. It seemed to him that, in spite of everything, it had been worth it. And he thanked every second that his brother Mycroft had dedicated in keeping him alive, and to Greg, that every time he had a suicidal thought he would stop his feet. Who was present in the last time that he had tried to end with his life, throwing himself on the tube lines with an explosive vest attached to his chest. And for once, he felt he was rewarded for the sleepless nights, the empty stomachs, and the robberies at midnight on the pure side. All of the alcohol that he had consumed. It wasn’t right, but it had been worth it, just for this moment.

He noticed the collar, of course he did. Someone with his powers of observation could not overlook such detail, and let alone after the gesture of the individual in question. He didn’t care about it. He knew what that meant, and he couldn’t care less. He was here. He was alive. They were together. They had found each other. Nothing else mattered.

He approached him, walking slowly, at a requiem step, until he reached the blond man. Sherlock had never stopped to think about the gender or the physical aspect of his soulmate. Elements like these didn’t seem relevant to him, but he couldn’t deny that the vision was more than good: a solid body, blond and strong. Young and not too old. Stable. Reliable. Secure. Good. Brilliant. Soft. Royal. Golden. All of that was what his eyesight gave him. He could feel his heart racing too, and he sat on the edge of the bed, never loosing eye contact with his partner. He reached out a hand, unable to contain himself, and brushed his cheek, wiping a tear, feeling as his eyes watered as well. He laughed, unable to contain himself. It was all being so unreal...

“I’ve found you.”

Sherlock’s words echoed in the room, and John laughed with him, unable to contain himself. It was then that he moved and surrounded Sherlock in a strong embrace, sobbing like a child, covering his face with one hand to prevent them from seeing him cry. He couldn’t believe his luck. In recent times, he had begun to believe that he would die alone. That his destiny was truncated. That he was condemned to solitude. John cried like he had not allowed himself to do it in years, knowing there was someone who would comfort him. He allowed himself to break into a thousand pieces, because he had someone who had promised to reconstruct him right in front of him, surrounding him with his arms to make sure that he didn’t get lost.

Fleetingly, Sherlock allowed himself to do the same. He allowed himself to feel everything he had not allowed himself to feel in his whole life. He allowed himself the pain. He allowed himself the pity. He allowed himself the hunger, thirst and rage. He allowed himself the blood. He allowed himself to be broken.

But, above all, he allowed himself joy. He allowed himself the forgiveness.

Greg abandoned the room, and asked the nurse, who was about to enter, surely alarmed by the readings of John’s vital signs, to leave a little privacy. That everything was in order. The nurse understood, and he sat down in one of the waiting chairs, watching the door to avoid anyone bothering them. God knew, if They were somewhere, that both of them deserved it. They deserved some peace in the middle of the war. From that chaotic horror that was the world, outside of the white walls of the hospital. Lestrade was not going to be the one to snatch them that. He wasn’t that selfish.

On the other hand, inside of the room, both were still holding each other, not wanting to separate, not even to see their faces. The comforting warmth of the other human being was enough to hold them together in that same posture. John laughed, his chest bouncing with each laugh, wiping the tears with the back of one hand, still with his chin resting on his soul mate’s shoulder, noticing the softness of his long coat.

“I’m John, by the way."

Sherlock laughed in turn, and buried his face on John’s shoulder, feeling the feverish skin of his directly against his forehead.

“Sherlock. And I believe that we have a life ahead of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> T/N: I’m really sorry that I didn’t post in time, I got a terrible cold and a headache followed after it. I’m getting better but it’s still lingering. I hope that I will get better soon and continue with the translations.  
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> Hope you're enjoying the reading.If you wanna know more about this stories or just if you're curious, here you have my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/herondale_mira) and also my [Tumblr](http://consultingpacha.tumblr.com) (Yeah, I'm the one in the one in the pic XD).  
> Don't hesitate in contacting me for anything. I do not bite.  
> Not too much, at least ;)  
> Thank you for your time!  
> MH
> 
> A/T:  
> I hope that you guys like my translation of this Fic from Spanish to English. I would also really appreciate if you could comment on any error that I have missed so that I can correct it.  
> This Fic has eleven chapters and is still in progress, and I have only translated the first one. In two weeks time, I hope that I'll have the second chapter translated so that you guys can continue reading this Fic.  
> Iglublue12


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